


Rebels

by NotRoman (Manniness)



Series: And Prove More Fierce [7]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengeance, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Agron and Nasir make a vow of the heart, Canon Divergence, Crixus and Naevia almost take it too far, Duro POV, Duro is all about raiding the Roman countryside, Gannicus might know a place that'll work, It turns out that lots of other people hate Romans too, M/M, Naevia remembers the lessons Nasir taught her, Nasir POV, Nasir goes undercover as a slaver (THIS AGAIN!), Nasir is gifted three fascinum (i.e. lucky dick amulets) and some twine, Sedullus makes bad life choices, Wanted: A good place to spend the winter and become an army, canon era AU, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-07-03 23:58:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15829572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/NotRoman
Summary: Sequel to VesuviusThe mines are taken.  And then towns and villas.  The rebels are on the move.WARNINGS: Basically, if you've seen the TV show, you know what kind of triggers to expect. (I feel that the Starz Spartacus series itself is "Explicit" and, since this fic is a Canon AU, I'm sticking with that rating.) HOWEVER, I will post warnings (such as DEATH, TORTURE, GORE (violent or medicinal), and SEXYTIMES) at the beginning of corresponding chapters. FYI, I have ZERO plans to describe Non-Con/NCS in detail.





	1. Tartarus

**Author's Note:**

> We are now at the seventh fic of the And Prove More Fierce series.
> 
> Nasir's POV (seven chapters) & Duro's POV (one chapter)
> 
> This story picks up a few days after the end of "Vesuvius." If you haven't read "Vesuvius," "The Path," "Fugitives," "The Arena," "The Brotherhood," and/or "The Recruit," I recommend doing so as I have not made any attempt for the individual fics to stand alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW -- PLEASE READ!!!
> 
> IMPORTANT! Some of the issues in the first chapter are GROSS and DISTURBING beyond what is shown/implied by the TV show. I don’t recommend eating while reading this particular chapter. In fact, the warnings themselves might trigger unpleasant imagery, so get yourself in a safe headspace before reading further, OK?
> 
> WARNINGS: GORE (death, decomposing bodies, mass graves, festering wounds), FILTH (contact with raw sewage and implied consumption of human waste), NCS (non-graphic, not involving canon characters, but it happens in real-time; and also -- vague references to sexual services required of “Tiberius”), reference to possible cannibalism, and finally... SEXYTIMES (because Agron and Nasir need a little happiness right now)
> 
> Theme music: “Halsey & Imagine Dragons - Gasoline Believer (GINGERGREEN mixed mashup)” edited by GINGERGREEN on YouTube (The original songs are “Gasoline” by Halsey and “Believer” by Imagine Dragons.)

“Move!”

Beside me, Duro tensed, his arm trembling against my elbow with the effort to stay the urge to burst from our hiding place and wreck havoc.

I fought the same inclination.

Just beyond the slight rise where we crouched concealed behind brambles, three grubby men in leather armor commanded six mud-covered, emaciated forms: slaves of the mines.  Dead-eyed men and women who yet walked upright though they would not endure for much longer.  They dragged filthy, starved corpses -- one after another -- from murky tunnel entrance toward open pit of rotting flesh.

The senior guard unsheathed a weighty knife and bellowed: “Make fucking haste or you worthless cunts shall keep the maggots company!”

Bile surged up in my throat as the first body was tossed in, stirring the reek of decay and raising a black cloud of buzzing flies.  So many despite recent cold nights.  In summertime, surely a man would not be able to draw breath absent dozens of the vile things crawling in gullet.

The stench alone brought tears to my eyes regardless of cautious distance from putrid source.

Duro pressed wrist to face, either sealing his mouth shut against vomit or attempting to filter the stink through familiar scent of dust and sweat.  I doubted either effort would be successful, but I did not shift from my post.

“Fuck,” Duro muttered, eyes squeezed shut as a second body tumbled into the pit with a wet slap of mud and decomposing flesh.  “Next time, Agron and Lydon are taking fucking scouting duty.”

I bit back my snort; it had been Duro’s insistence that had seen us leading the way today.  Had he known just how close we’d been to a tunnel exit and one of the mines’ “refuse” pits, he would have kept fucking mouth shut.  I chose to keep mine closed lest I taste the air that stung eyes and seared nose.

Ten bodies.  My lungs shriveled in the wake of each one.  Fuck.

And then, with naught but bare hands, the six slaves shoveled a thin sprinkling of loose earth onto the dead.

Finally, the soldiers bullied their charges back into tunnel’s pitch blackness.  I listened for the _****clank**** ** **!****_  of metal that had initially propelled my hands to push Duro to the ground and crawl upon elbow and knee toward the commotion.  I almost wished we hadn’t discovered this place.  At least not while it had been in use.

With the cessation of activity, the flies once again settled and the spoiled air slowly sank back into the pit.  Had we come upon the site in this state, we would have saved ourselves considerable discomfort.

But the information gathered would not be put to waste: at least three guards armed with long knives and attired in leather -- not metal -- armor were given duty of one tunnel.  The number of tunnels themselves were unknown, but I now possessed some numbers for ready calculation.  Such stood our charge.  Among other things.

“Keep watch here,” I whispered and carefully made my way toward tunnel exit to confirm that I had indeed heard the sound of iron grate closing and lock being thrown shut.  I circled the pit, staying low and concealed, but could not see deep enough into the gloom despite improved angle.  I checked the orientation of sun in sky and frowned.  Would that tunnel exit faced southeast so as to be illuminated in early morning light.  Well, several days remained allotted for task of reconnoitering the mines.  There was yet time to confirm manner of lock and operation schedule.

Duro made neither comment nor complaint upon my return.  As one, we withdrew.  Agron and the others would be approaching this position soon and we would head them off before anyone stumbled upon the pit.  I vividly recalled the stench Duro had worn when he’d tumbled into the ditch filled with Marius’ guards.  Gods save us all if one of our number became so afflicted out here at considerable distance from hot bath and clean oil.

We quickly retraced our footsteps through the forest.

I glanced Duro’s way more than once, wary of his uncharacteristic silence.  Even during times when he broke no words, there was an animation about him that drew the gaze.  Now he resembled marble statue.

Slowing our steps before we attempted the next incline, I put out a hand and hitched my brows in question.

He shook his head and glanced back over his shoulder.  “Fucking Romans.  When they threw Lucius on the dung heap -- I held no great love for the man, but -- fuck.”  His jaw worked, sliding left and then right before he spat: “I no longer wonder why you finally chose to watch villain nailed to cross.”

“I did not expect I would ever wish to witness it again,” I admitted.

Duro blinked.  “Again?”

I shrugged.  “I lived in Capua for many years.  It is not an uncommon occurrence.”

His mouth tightened into a long, flat line of rage; he could not be identical to Agron in this regard, either.  “Fucking Romans,” he repeated, perhaps too incensed to conjure a more creative insult in common tongue.  “Ten dead this day and those who will soon follow charged with tossing them into cesspit of--”  Catching sight of the look on my face, Duro broke off and demanded, “What fucking now?”

I shook my head.  “Duro…”

“Speak, brother.”

“And further inflame your rage?  I think not.”

He stared at me hard.  “Speak, Nasir.  I will know of it one way or another, will I not?”

Fuck.  He would.  I exhaled.  “We have located one tunnel exit.”

“One,” he repeated slowly, “tunnel exit.  One tunnel -- how many fucking tunnels and ditches for bodies are there?”

“It stands our charge to count them,” I unhappily reminded him.  “But far more than one.”

His face scrunched with disgust and fury.  Brows twitching as he fought against rising tide of emotion, Duro spoke to the silent trees: “The bowels of Tartarus.  They truly so stand.”

“They truly do.”  And so easily Agron and Duro could have been sent to them had Capua’s lanistas not cared for the look of them at auction.  “But not for much longer,” I vowed.  Clapping Duro on the shoulder, I nodded him toward the rise, urging him on.  We would not make assault upon the mines this day.  Soon, but not today.

Over the rise, across the next dell, and then a leap over meandering stream saw us returned to friends.  Lydon and Vitus had claimed post of lookout.

“Are we close?” Vitus asked of our progress.

Duro nodded, throat visibly tensing, and it fell to me to make reply: “Yes.  Quiet steps from here onward.  The tunnel guards are minimally armed, but we have not yet glimpsed outer patrols.”

“You have laid eyes upon their armament?” Lydon questioned.

I gestured for both of them to accompany us to hear report in full.

Agron’s warm welcome soothed a little of Duro’s disquiet, but he clearly wished to know what had so affected his brother.  I doubted any words could do the horror justice.  And that was only concerning the conditions beyond the tunnels.  How much daylight did Duro think those condemned to work the tunnels saw?  What did he think they dressed themselves in?  Where did he think they slept when permitted short rest?  Pissed while charged with duty?  What did he imagine they ate when hunger grew relentless in those dark passageways?  What did he assume they drank when thirst overwhelmed?

By the gods, how was I to prepare our forces for the revolting conditions we would encounter?

 _ ** **Little by little,****_  I decided.  Perhaps they would discern the truth for themselves before I was forced to break words of warning.

I gave report on the tunnel exit, the number of guards, the weakened state of the slaves--

“No assistance on offer from the likes of them,” Rabanus observed, earning a nod of agreement from Leviticus.

I then broke words of caution on placement of feet: “These mines have existed for many years.  Other ditches of bodies, thinly covered in earth and no longer in use, are surely nearby.”

Duro gawped at me.  I stared back at him, willing him to calculate the number of dead.  We had seen ten corpses tossed into compost heap in one afternoon.  Over the course of a week, a month, a year… the hole we had discovered would not hold so many.

“Fuck,” he coughed, turning away, eyes shining with tears.

Agron reached out to clasp his shoulder, but Duro shrugged him off and stomped toward a seemingly random tree on pretense of pissing.  My lover turned back to me, seeking explanation.

“I have not the words to convince you of the evil of those mines,” I informed helplessly.

He nodded.  “Then let us cast gaze upon it.  If that stands as the only way to know it.”

Our venture required another day of scouting to discover three additional tunnel exits, pits of dead, and the rotation of patrols that marched the rim of the mines themselves and, by then, my companions were beginning to understand.  Still, the daily disposal of bodies and the perpetual sneer worn by each guard and their moaning complaints prepared no one for the sight of it.  At dusk, we timed approach between the passing of guards and gained a full view of the operation from above.

Vitus ducked down and vomited, stomach heaving in silence.

“By the gods,” Leviticus gasped at the yawning maw that had been dug with the bare hands of slaves.  Generations of slaves.

Rabanus shook his head in denial.  “No gods would allow this.  Not even Roman ones.”

Lydon concluded: “So they send us to deal out punishment.”

“I count eight tunnel entrances,” Duro ground out, determined to see our charge to completion as quickly as possible, “on the eastern side alone.”

“Eight days may not be enough,” Agron agreed dourly.  I had argued for more time to fully map our objective and return to camp, but no one could conceive of the massive scale of the place.  How could they?  It defied any attempt at envisioning, even with a witness to provide description.

I gestured everyone away before guards happened upon us or the eyes of the overseers adjusted to the lengthening shadows.

That night, when Vitus’ belly rumbled from hunger, Duro readily passed him his own portion of cured meat and bread crust, but instead of gratitude, the former house slave inquired, “What do they eat?”

They.  We all knew of whom he spoke.

I answered, “Gruel made from overripe vegetables and moldy grain.  Whatever pigs and goats do not take before it would cause illness.”

Rabanus scowled.  Lydon leaned his head against the tree trunk at back.  Leviticus gaped at me.  Vitus’ head remained bowed.

“Gruel?” Agron sought to confirm.  “How is it distributed within the tunnels?”

 _ ** **Fuck.****_   Eyes closed, lungs drew breath, and--

Duro answered: “From ass to hand to mouth.”

All gazes snapped to him, but his was trained upon me.

“Well?  Have I the right of it or not?”

“You speak truth,” I mumbled, sickened despite knowing the fact of it for years.

For a long moment, the only movement among us was the breeze.

“Fuck,” Agron snarled, fully as intent on bare-handed murder as I had ever seen him.

Vitus wordlessly tucked the bread and meat into his pack.  He had already vomited once today.  An understandable reaction to seeing hundreds upon hundreds of naked, filthy forms with open lash marks upon arms and legs, wounds oozing pus and squirming with maggots as they scraped with bloodied hands and hauled sacks of stone upon raw-skinned back, working mindlessly in the waning light.  Yes, any person possessed of even the smallest measure of compassion would be hard pressed to keep belly’s contents behind teeth, but that did not change the hard truth that Vitus had wasted food.  Even the regurgitated mass that had been hastily buried lest a guard’s sandal discover it would be regarded a feast by the souls trapped in that place.

Our bellies rumbled in the absence of spoken words, but none of us could tolerate the thought of sustenance.  We filled churning guts with water instead.  In the morning, we would have to venture back to the stream some leagues distant to obtain more.  I did not trust the springs or creeks so near the mines to taste clean upon palate.

Agron joined me for night watch as the others pretended to rest.  He wrapped long arms around my form as if to act as shield.

I huffed.  “There is no need for you to protect me from this.”  I would almost like to witness attempt; how would Agron’s arms keep my own thoughts at bay?

“Is that what you think I do?”  He chuckled wryly.  “A wasted effort.  And a service you have never accepted from me.”

“Did I not?”  I reminded him of that moment in the ludus of Batiatus when I had confided the number of days remaining until my first fight in the arena and Agron’s effort to curve himself until he had faintly resembled a snail’s shell.

He sighed, shaking his head.  “Nasir,” he breathed, “what other act would a man undertake when learning he will soon stand absent his heart.  Even if for a day?”

I paused -- tilted head back and attempted to catch his gaze in the darkness, but I could make out little more than the silhouette of his head against the moonlight.  “You--you did not… doubt me?”

He huffed out a wet chortle.  “Not since you demonstrated the good sense to heed advice and keep sense of surroundings.”

“Huh,” I coughed.  “Then what prompts such affection now?  You feel night’s chill?”

He evaded the jest with a single utterance: “Where all body slaves go at the end of their usefulness.”

I shivered.

“You knew of this place before accepting charge as that fuck’s body slave?”

I did not know how to respond except with truth: “I did.”  I had even accompanied Marius here once, witnessing its wretched truth with my own eyes.  And I had made choice regardless.

His arms tensed.  He exhaled hot breath against my neck, tucking himself close.  Holding his heart.  “Fuck the gods,” he murmured and it was not an angry curse but an observation of their utter uselessness.  “You stand the strongest man I have ever known.”

I would have to accept his reckoning of that, I supposed, but I made attempt to present expected argument: “Do Spartacus and I not stand equally foolish?”

In answer, his lips nibbled my ear and I permitted the distraction.

It was either that or acknowledge aloud that our leader’s foolishness with regards to liberating the mines sprang from the origin of ignorance whereas mine did not.

I was fortunate Agron named it strength rather than stupidity.

During the following days, we counted sixteen tunnel exits, five of which we had witnessed in use.

One main road and entrance leading into the mines.

Five patrols of three men circled the rim, sword worn at hip, on four daily rotations.

A minimum of three guards at tunnel exits.

A dozen overseers armed with whips to direct open-air work.

Four men, armed with sword and knife, stood at the ready to beat, stab, slash, and kill at each overseer’s behest.

Daily deliveries of unpalatable, rotting sludge for the workers and new slaves to replace those who had reached the limit of their utility.

Oh, gods.  Libo… Zaria… they had almost stood shivering, hope evaporating, as these just delivered, wretched forms now did.  The head overseer grabbed the comeliest woman by her hair and hauled her into nearby tent.  Others were not even provided the thin barrier of fabric to conceal the indignity of being bent over nearest surface or forced to knees by overseers of lower rank.  Then a few guards took their turn.

Duro lowered his head to his fisted hands, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched, breaths coming too fast and deep as his fury built.  On my other side, Agron snarled and were it possible to fell a man by gaze alone, Agron’s glare would have slain them all.  Rabanus gently patted Vitus’ shoulder as the man trembled.  Lydon and Leviticus both clutched sword pommel with intent.

But there was nothing the seven of us could do at present.

And another weighted wagon was rolling in.

Casting gaze up to the thick, gray clouds, I nudged my brothers.  “Come.  Spartacus awaits report and rain will soon provide respite.”  I doubted the overseers and guards would put forth as much effort to harass the next wave of newcomers in cold, wet weather.

Return journey to camp was undertaken in solemn silence not out of effort to avoid unwanted attention but out of rage and grief at visceral reminder of Rome’s callousness and cruelty.

We had counted thousands of slaves, none of whose wounds were treated.  We had caught whiffs of the rotten gruel they choked down upon survival of shift.  We had cast gaze upon the bare patch of earth at mine’s center where workers were permitted to rest weary body and where, at whip’s crack, some inevitably did not stir for another day’s labor.

The deceased were taken out by cart and I supposed it was only the smallest comfort that the guards did not make a practice of stripping away bodies’ meager rags before dumping the corpses into stew pot for the doomed to devour.

Though, should wagon fail to deliver sufficient quantity of stale, unpalatable fodder, there was little else aside from dirt to fill empty bellies.

I shuddered.

The skies opened.

Chilly rain poured down upon us until we at last encountered familiar faces: Totus, Litaviccus, and a Gaul I had not yet broken words with stood watch at camp perimeter.  They happily escorted us the remainder of the way, eager to pass miserable charge on to the next team.  It was well past dusk, but none of us paused to warm ourselves within tent, seek dry clothing, or follow mouth-watering aroma to Euclid’s never-empty cook pot.

We first discharged duty to Spartacus who had fortunately already eaten.  He, Mira, Crixus, and Naevia grew pale with nausea.  Gannicus’ chin lowered to his chest, his glare contemplating crossed arms on a drawn-out sigh.  Oenomaus merely asked how we would transport the liberated once the mines were taken.

“The nearest town,” Spartacus answered, looking to the map.  “Where lies mine entrance?”

Rabanus pointed to it.  Our gazes shifted to neighboring settlement: Nola.

“Have any set eyes upon this city?”

Gannicus and I both had.  It stood smaller than Capua.  Its granary would likely hold sufficient quantity to see those who were not already irredeemably for the afterlife to strength.

“I would not recommend taking up residence,” Gannicus spoke.  “It is in a valley -- not unlike Atella -- but lacking a wall.”

“Indefensible,” Oenomaus summarized grimly.

Crixus argued, sneering, “Defense against what?  It took Rome weeks to send a force in Glaber’s wake.”

“They will come,” Mira insisted.  “And we must expect to face greater numbers when they do.”

“They will not find us in Nola,” Spartacus decided.  “We liberate the mines and allow a week, no more than two, for those who require rest to obtain it… and also for news to spread and those of able body and like mind to join us.  We do not winter here.”

Gannicus looked away unhappily when Spartacus glanced toward him.  I could only assume that they had broken words previously on this point, though the nature of the discord that had arisen between them I could not guess.

And I would not inquire tonight.  Tonight was for a meal among friends, and then a bath with my Germans, and at long last a cot shared with my lover.

Agron and I tangled together, sharing warmth absent desire for anything more.  What we had witnessed at the mines haunted us both.  My first visit had been short -- a transaction that Marius had either not trusted his body slave to see to or an opportunity to reveal the consequence of ineptitude to me, a newly acquired house slave.  I had seen enough to be horrified and sickened, determined to serve my master well.  I had not seen _****all.****_   The horrors had not been thrust upon me in one blow.  Instead they had unfolded one by one over the course of months through snide comments and off-handed jests within the relative comfort of Marius’ villa.

The harassment from villa guards that had left no mark upon my flesh during Marius’ absences and the demands of bored guests seeking entertainment had been nothing compared to the inescapable agony of the mines.  Or so I had lectured myself following each instance my services had been used.  Still, when Marius had offered me post of body slave, I had not hesitated to accept -- not even for a moment -- and had hoped that my dedication would earn me a quick, merciful death when the time came.

I shifted, nudging my nose against Agron’s scar to escape the pull of my own.

He sighed and reaffirmed the loose loop of his arms crossing over my shoulders and back.  Slumber eluded him as well.

“Let us find Duro,” I murmured.  Our brother had insisted on hearing the past week’s news from his German brethren, sending us both from his sight.  By now, perhaps, he had reconsidered the benefits of our company.

Agron’s hands squeezed my arm and shoulder.  “Let’s.”

We found him resting upon a boar hide laid out atop damp earth, staring up at the starless night sky.  When Agron offered an arm to help him up, he accepted.  I collected the hide.  We laid it down upon dry ground within the tent Agron and I had claimed, and then the three of us curled close together upon it.  For the first time, it was Duro between Agron and myself.

Turned toward his brother, he snarled his fury, spitting and hissing words in the tongue spoken east of the Rhine.  I could guess the object of his ire: Rome.  And I could commiserate, clutching his shoulder hard, wordlessly reminding him that his other brother yet watched his back.

And, in the wake of spent fury, when aching helplessness overwhelmed, Duro rolled toward me and I patted his lengthening hair, adding my dry-eyed sorrow to his silent tears.  When I shivered from their cold splash upon my shoulder, Agron’s arm stretched around both of us, thumb slowly chafing my arm and fingers curled to grasp with reassuring strength.

I was unaware of succumbing to slumber, only waking to the gentle, teasing brush of a fingertip nudging a lock of tumbled hair away from nose and over brow.

I snorted when that same clump of strands immediately slid back to previous position and Agron heaved an exasperated sigh.  Opening my eyes, I smiled at him over Duro’s lax form.  He’d somehow rolled onto his back during the night, wedging himself between us and partially beneath our weight.  I supposed he had been warm enough despite lack of blanket.

There was a faint crust of drool in Agron’s short beard; I could feel dried moisture clinging to the corners of my eyes; Duro’s gradually lengthening hair stuck up in clusters of matted tufts.  I laughed softly, imagining the sight that the three of us would make to anyone unfortunate enough to stick their head past tent flaps.

Agron squinted, his chin jerking to the side in question at the source of my mirth even as his lips stretched wider.

I shook my head.

Perhaps sensing our merriment -- or the simple fact that his bedmates were both awake -- Duro stirred, lashes fluttering open on a yawn.  His gaze landed upon his brother’s fingers tangled in my hair and he rolled his eyes.

“Truly?  You two would fuck now?”

Agron retorted, “Should there be an unsuitable time for fucking, by all means name it.”

“Ugh.  I despise you both.”

My smile widened; far from despising us, Duro loved us both more than ever.  It was evident in the warmth of his tone and faint smile clinging to his forced show of disapproval.

He curled up and pushed to his feet, storming from the tent without so much as a “good morning.”  I glanced across the boar hide toward Agron.

His teeth scraped lower lip and then both of us were giggling like naughty boys.

“Shall we indulge his suggestion?” Agron asked, brows waggling over bright eyes.

“Hm,” I answered, reaching out scratch at the trail of dried saliva upon his chin.  “I would wash and break our fast first.”

Prodding the skin near corner of eye -- and crust that yet clung there -- Agron shrugged.  “If you wish.  I would have you however you like.”

Even unwashed, stale, and sleep-rumpled.  Yes, he would.  Fucking German.

Despite Duro’s accusation and Agron’s offer, no activity resembling fucking took place following the completion of my conditions.  Instead, Mira called us to temple portico for a second conference.  Spartacus appeared as if he had not slept at all since we had given report the night before.

“I would move soon,” he informed and, looking to Duro, Agron, and myself, inquired: “How many will be needed to take the tunnels from without, see the guards removed from patrol, and those commanding operations in open air to the afterlife?”

A three-pronged approach, then.  Swift, decisive, and unanticipated.  I gave my best approximations and added, “Should everyone be fully informed and committed to purpose, the mines will fall in a single afternoon.”

Mira frowned down at the map.  “And with approach of sunset, would so many be forced to spend another night in place of torment?”

“No,” Spartacus vowed.  “I will break words with Crixus and Gannicus regarding Nola.  If the liberated can yet endure the hardship of short journey, I would have them take comfort there.”

“And wound care,” Duro added before I could open my mouth to do the same.

“Simon?” Spartacus proposed, aiming his gaze at me.

With a nod, I agreed, “I will break words and urge him to prepare a team to assist in Nola.”  I asked of Mira: “If your archers would carry packs of bandages and some of what vinegar yet remains…?”

She nodded although neither of us were particularly optimistic that anyone requiring immediate attention would manage the walk to Nola regardless of treatment.

“And food,” Agron insisted quietly.

Spartacus replied, “Euclid already works to bake as much bread as possible.  We will stock the wagons as best we can.”

That was all we could do: our best.  I feared it would not be enough.

Agron shared in that fear as well.

Once I had convinced Simon to accept charge of medicus and gather hands willing to heed his instruction, my lover and I retreated to our tent.  I paused at threshold long enough to knot the flaps shut and then our weapons and clothing fell in scattered piles.

Atop the boar hide, Agron knelt upon knees and I leaned against him, back-to-chest, his mouth upon my neck -- heat of passion-quickened breaths puffing upon skin dampened by rasp of tongue and made tender from the scratch of scruff.  Rough-skinned hands swept over my skin.  A pinch to nipple combined with nip from teeth rendered me gasping and incoherent.

I scrambled for his forearm, anchoring myself to my own skin as his oiled fingertips drifted between us and drew a line all the way up to my tailbone, drawing a keening cry from my throat and pulling my neck into a mindless arch.  Fuck, these fingers.  Ah, sweet pleasure.  Thoughts, concerns, the world itself faded away and I fell into sensation: teasing touch, swirling massage, aching invasion.  One, two, three…

Then his palms pressed against my hips, urging me to shift onto balls of feet and fit ass to cradle of hips.  And finally, he was shifting closer, his slick cock sliding slowly into well-attended entrance.

Locking one arm up around his neck and the other hand clawing at his hip, I urged him nearer.  His soft groans and whispers -- “Nasir…” -- grounded me in the moment.  I was neither pinned down nor trapped.  Him taking me back-to-front was my choice -- one I could swiftly abandon should I wish it.  But his touch was so warm and tender, attentive and giving, that my mind could only marvel at him: Agron.

My lover.

“I would,” he whispered across ear, “feel your pleasure from within.”

Ah, fuck.  He would receive no argument from me.

I fumbled for his hand, guiding it between my thighs -- shuddered at teasing touch upon straining length in counter to the hard-and-seamless thrusting of his hips -- and I taught him of the pleasure to be gained from massage of tender flesh found further back beyond base of cock and balls.

Fuck the fucking--!

I no longer cared if my groans were audible beyond flimsy shelter provided by tent.  I clawed at his nape as I rode his cock and fingers--

“Nasir--fuck, fuck, fuck--”

And then an oil-slick grasp surrounded my cock -- hot-fast friction -- and I was irrevocably lost in the pure, visceral _****goodness****_  of it, my gut tightening and mind blanking and ears empty of sound.

Oh, fuck.

This.  This man.  My lover.  Agron.  All one in the same.

I came back to myself on a laugh to the sound of his impassioned swearing in German as my body shivered and twitched helplessly around his throbbing cock.  Scrape of teeth against my neck and shoulder, swipe of tongue, deep-throated whines--I sighed with contentment and urged, “Now take yours.”

His arms wound around me and mine reaffirmed hold upon his neck and shoulders.  I grinned madly up at the roof of the tent as he rutted deep and fast, following quickly in my wake and, as his thrusts stuttered with telling irregularity, I leaned to the side, tilted chin up and over shoulder to lick his jaw in counterpoint to each pulse of release.

His forehead dropped to my shoulder.  He sucked deep breaths.  I rode the movements of his broad chest, feeling each moment as he gathered scattered senses.  Soft, warm kisses against my neck, jaw, cheek, lips.  His grasp loosened and hands ghosted over hips and thighs.

“Too rough,” he chastised himself.

“I make no complaint.”

He giggled, but it ebbed quickly.  “I gave you my oath that no man would ever impose his will upon you.”

I tugged on nape of neck until his gaze met mine.  “And I informed you that I would suffer no unwanted touch.”

“You do not suffer me?” he jested, lips quirked.

I shrugged.  “When you kick away my blanket, perhaps.”

“Apologies,” he murmured with mock seriousness.

“Provide me with another,” I said, drawing his arms around me in tighter -- _****warmer****_  -- embrace, “and I am satisfied.”

I would recall this moment, draw steadying strength from it, many times over the following day when our plans were set in motion.  Our forces divided: Crixus, Naevia, and Gannicus led the Gauls and Pompeii fighters toward Nola while Spartacus, Oenomaus, Mira, Agron, Duro, Germans, Syrians, and myself made way to the mines.  The Brotherhood had parted in equal numbers.  Lydon, Leviticus, and Rabanus accompanied us, though they clearly held no love for the thought of returning.  Vitus appeared on the verge of passing out as we drew within a league of the mines.  If not for their familiarity with this place and the necessity of their direction to others, they would have all been far happier raiding nearest Roman city.

Teams, each charged with clearly defined duties, surrounded the mines by the time morning dew had been licked away by sun’s rays.  Agron, Duro, and I crouched at furthest tunnel’s entrance and waited for opportunity to present itself.

We broke no words.  In truth, there was little to say.  Mira and I had insisted on precise plans, detailing contingencies until even Spartacus slumped with weariness at the amount of information foisted upon his ears.  Agron and Duro likely relished the silence, long grown weary of my voice.

Still, given that Spartacus’ plan for seeing himself and his brothers from Batiatus’ ludus had consisted of “open gate and kill them all,” Mira and I had cause to be concerned at lack of forethought.

Duro blew out a long breath.  “Now it comes to it; you’ve talked yourself to silence, little brother.”

With a sidelong glare, I jabbed elbow into ribs.  “Did you not hear two days’ worth of my words yesterday?”

“Mira’s perhaps,” Agron asserted on a laugh.

“Ah, yes,” I intoned drolly, “you shall never tire of the sound of _****my****_  voice.”

“Only when used to sigh and scream my brother’s name.”  Duro teased, affecting a blissful expression, voice pitched high and soft: “Oh, Agron!  Agron!  Fuck the gods, Ag--!”

The moment my head bowed in disgrace at Duro’s behavior, Agron lunged over my shoulders to clamp his idiotic brother’s mouth shut.  I sighed: “That in no way resembles my voice.”

Both Germans ignored my halfhearted objection.

“And what will you scream when the fucking guards overhear?” Agron muttered darkly.

Duro wiggled free of his brother’s grasp and, grinning triumphantly, replied cheekily, _****“Agron.”****_

My lover snorted and settled back into his hiding place.  I was just beginning to consider the wisdom of having arranged myself between them when the grating _****click!****_  of rusty metal echoed through the forest.

All three of us snapped to attention, gazes focused upon tunnel’s gloom and bodies tensed in preparation to strike.  Staying attack, we watched as three irritable guards emerged and bullied eight slaves into dragging the bodies of thirteen toward nearby pit.  When they angrily gestured their charges back into the tunnel, Duro nodded and we leaped from cover of brush.

The guards’ knives, while well suited to dealing out death and wounds within the narrow confines of tunnels, presented no challenge against our swords.

Slash, stab, slice.

Flesh split and blood gushed in whispers of sound.

In but a moment, our work was done.

Duro grinned my way.

Agron looked up from the guard he’d felled and froze at the sight of something within earthen tunnel.

Following his gaze, I saw the eight men and women gaping at us.  Some were so far beyond exhaustion that no flicker of life showed in their unblinking gaze.  Others looked upon us with apprehensive hope.

A single mouth moved: “Your purpose here?”

“We mean you no harm,” Duro murmured in a soothing voice.  He offered a boyish smile.  “My brothers and I would see you and your brethren free of this place and given sanctuary.”

“To what aim?” a second, mud-coated figure inquired.

“Is denying the Romans gains from this fucking mine not enough?” Agron replied.

I placed a gore-splattered hand on his arm.  “We follow Spartacus and seek to free all from Roman collar.”

“Will you lead us through the tunnels?” Duro pleaded and received eight obedient nods of varying enthusiasm in reply.

We three claimed the filthy garb worn by the Romans at our feet.  The eight slaves claimed the satisfaction of tossing their bodies into fly-infested pit of carrion.

Armed with both newly acquired weapons and steady favorites -- our clothing concealed beneath leather armor -- we followed the now-freed slaves into the reeking darkness.  Our sandaled feet splashed through water poisoned by shit and piss and rotting flesh.  Light of day grew fainter and fainter until we turned corner and it disappeared completely.

We had entered the bowels of Tartarus.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am actually not sure where the Lucania Mines were located. I assume they’re in Lucania (whereas Capua, Atella, Nola, Mount Vesuvius, Nuceria Alfaterna, Pompeii, and Neapolis are all in Campania). But in order to mesh some points I found in my research, I’m placing the mines in Campania, near Nola. Apparently, Spartacus raided Nola at some point during the Third Serville War and he also plundered Nuceria Alfaterna in 73 BC.
> 
> One of the main things that struck me about the love scene in 3x03 was that Nasir always had “a way out” -- even when activities get horizontal, Agron’s kinda hovering (but not pinning) in such a way that Nasir could totally do a knee-to-groin and escape if he felt threatened. And then during intercourse, Nasir is given the “open” side of the bed and Agron places himself between Nasir and the wall. Though we’re never given any indication that Nasir feels threatened by Agron ever (except perhaps when Nasir’s own feelings maybe overwhelm him in 2x03 -- don’t tell me he’s not panicking over his attraction to Agron and totally hiding behind this expressionless “wall” ESPECIALLY DURING THE “VAIN ATTEMPT” HALLWAY SCENE), I really think the body language and positioning in relation to one another speaks volumes. So, I wanted to reference that here in this chapter: you can probably guess why Nasir might not be so crazy about certain sexual positions in general (and yes I know I haven’t written Nasir giving Agron oral attentions and that is a deliberate omission on my part because I think it’s totally OK for Nasir to avoid acts that remind him of his days as Tiberius), but Nasir is always OK with Agron because Agron is all about making sure that Nasir is OK.


	2. Nola

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Just about everything from the previous chapter (Tartarus), more GORE (maiming, medicinal aid and surgeries), sexytimes (not capitalized)
> 
> Theme music: Light em up x Radioactive (Mashup) edited by Exostomp Music on YouTube (The original songs are “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” by Fall Out Boy and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons)

Bile.

Agron, Duro, and I all fought against it as the stench gained in wretched pungency, thrusting-slamming-invading nose and throat.  Stinging us within our skin as the filthy water we slogged through stung us from without.

And Duro had complained of my feet before this.

A sputter of torch light in the distance and, as we neared it, the smell of shit eased though I would not label the air any fresher.  I gradually realized that the shifting shadows contained laborers crouched shoulder to shoulder, skinned fingers scooping at damp earth.  What they had been charged to seek I did not know.  Gods willing, they would never again be required to concern themselves with its pursuit after today.

“How many additional guards stand between here and tunnel entrance?” Duro asked one of the more vocal men.

I turned to the woman trailing a generous distance behind Agron.  “How long until shift change?”

“It occurs now,” she replied and explained further at my prompting nod: “The dead are taken out before we are permitted to take meal out of doors.”

Yes, that made sense; there would be little point in wasting food upon someone who was less than a day’s work from the afterlife.  From brief observations made between patrols, it had seemed that such shift changes were staggered so that the meal pot could be emptied -- one ladle of slop per bare, cupped hands -- and then refilled in time for the next tunnel to disgorge its slaves.

Agron glanced back over his shoulder at me, indicating with a wave that he had heard her words.  He then reached around a man who shrank back from the unexpected motion and tapped Duro’s shoulder.  “We lead them out now and others take their place.  How many guards arrive with the new shift?”

And where would we conceal ourselves in order to see them to the afterlife?

Leaving the tunnels was as simple as following the coarse shouts up ahead as the guards scolded their charges to move fucking ass or rot in the filthy dark.  I took up charge of issuing threats, startling Agron and Duro alike into hesitating, hands upon knife handle.

“We must keep them moving,” I whispered, indicating the shuffling forms ahead of us, “and seek out places to conceal ourselves along the way.”

Duro ground out, “I’m long past ready to bleed these fucks.”

“And add their innards to the stench of this place,” I grumbled.

“Pity,” Agron agreed, “that Romans reek on both sides of their worthless skin.”

Little by little, with every tunnel branch, the sound of splashing footsteps increased in volume as more and more slaves rose, abandoning their charge to seek respite beneath open sky.  It was surely too soon for all the other teams to be in place.  We would have to wait for the signal.

A dim glow of pale light ahead.  Not torches but daylight.  I tugged on Agron’s belt and he, in turn, gained Duro’s attention.  We each found a narrow vein near tunnel entrance.  Close enough that the sight of the workers and guards entering would not yet be fully adjusted to the pitiful torch light.  Hopefully, the nooks we concealed ourselves in would be swiftly passed by, their yields harvested long ago.

We held our breath at the sound of echoing whip crack.  The slow plodding patter of bare feet.  The jeering threats and barked commands of the next shift of guards.  Incoming workers moved past as blind men and women, facing straight ahead.  How many of these people would succumb before their frail hands felt freedom?

The last group of guards entered with knives unsheathed, each man pausing to investigate the old veins and various nooks.  Such as the ones where Agron, Duro, and I stood.  One of the three guards appeared to be new to the mines for he whined about the stench and the other two laughed at him in between telling of how they’d cut a worker’s throat _****here****_  or that _****this****_  was a popular spot for attempting to shirk one’s duty.

“Wage offered is as piss in a bucket,” the new guard grumbled.

“Finish your ten-day rotation and see it increase,” one of his senior comrades reminded him.

The second added in a sly tone, “Along with other benefits.”

And then one of them reached Duro’s location.

“Fuck!” I barked as Duro struck.  “Move ass, you lazy rotten cunt!”

The cursing drew the attention of the now remaining two guards.  As one passed Agron’s hiding place, my lover stabbed quickly with knife and I slammed the third guard up against wall, slicing throat before he could do more than gasp in surprise at encountering weighty resistance.  He had undoubtedly expected a skin-and-bones slave driven to madness to make attempt.  If attempt were made at all.

Worthless, complacent fuck.  The only reason I did not spit upon him was because I refused to waste clean water.

“Duro?” Agron checked.

“Victorious,” he fairly crowed in the now empty tunnel.  “And I would offer accommodation for your friends if you find yourselves in need.”

I did; my chosen hiding place would not conceal the sprawled form of a body.

Neither Agron nor Duro enjoyed lurking in the dark absent room to even stretch out and pace, but I had experienced years of attending a demanding Roman master who often preferred his body slave to stand out of sight but not beyond range of tactful summons.  How many pillars and curtains had I concealed myself behind as Marius attended to business in supposed privacy?  There was little point in tallying the number, but it was large.

“Do you yet breathe, little brother?” Duro queried during a pause in the whispers he aimed into the darkness -- excessively detailed news on events within camp that we had missed due to assignment to reconnoiter the mines.

“I do,” I replied.  “Though should you continue to gossip as Gannicus, I may nod off.”

Agron laughed at Duro’s affronted squawk.  In spite of shit and piss and wretched filth of this place, I grinned -- it had been too long since I’d offended Duro so thoroughly.

Occasionally, a scuffle or commotion from tunnel entrance drew our attention.  Duro claimed the privilege of investigating only to report another tunnel emptying of its miserable attendants and a new batch being sent in their place, or the arrival of a wagon.

“Rabanus?” I asked, hopeful that our torment -- fuck, the torment of all in this accursed place -- would soon be at an end.  Rabanus had been charged with waiting until receiving word that our teams had infiltrated the tunnels and patrols had been dispatched to greet the Ferryman before driving through the front gates.

“No,” Duro replied with such furious finality that I did not bother to ask if the delivery had consisted of slaves.  From his tone, it had.  And they were enduring similar welcome to what we had witnessed before.

I could hear Agron’s molars grinding.  “Roman shits.”

I no longer felt guilt at having dispatched those seven slavers.  I now only wished I had been given opportunity to kill their replacements as well.

By end of day, perhaps I would.

We waited.

We waited through the process of two additional tunnels receiving less weary forms to dig deeper.

We waited through delivery of rotting compost meant for mines’ stew pots.

We waited through harsh shouts, whip cracks, hoarse screams.

We waited until--

“Rabanus!” Duro snarled, long past any sense of happy relief.

Agron drew both his own knife and the one he’d taken from the dead guard.  “I watch the tunnel.”

Duro and I both drew gladius in right and Roman knife in left as we shifted to face tunnel entrance.

Still, we waited.

A kerfuffle and a cry -- “I am Spartacus!”

Arrows whistled through the air.

Roaring German warriors exploded from the five just-arrived wagons.

With the mine’s main entrance blocked, archers picked off enemies from rim’s overlook.

Understandably, many guards and overseers scrambled to make escape through the tunnels, more or less falling upon Duro’s sword and mine in their panic.

When Duro tired, I forced him to exchange places with Agron, where he whined -- “I have not yet reached two dozen!” -- and complained of boredom until, with one more Roman shit impaled upon up-thrusted sword, I dragged the body aside and barked at Duro to stand with his brother.

I alternated attention between hauling bodies out from underfoot and watching for resistance from within depths of tunnel.

Yet no resistance came.

It was not until Oenomaus, breathing hard and coated in gore, passed close enough to break words that we knew without doubt that the mines had been taken.

Agron clapped Duro’s shoulder and our excitable brother exclaimed: “And now we hunt the rest!”

So we did.

The three of us encountered little difficulty in stomping right up to each target and sheathing gore-smeared blade into a guard’s gut.  They assumed us to be new faces among their ranks, for who would dare storm the fucking mines?

Spartacus, for one.

The three of us mad fucks, in addition.

The guards who had been feared by thousands fell with disappointing lack of resistance.

The liberation itself, on the other hand, was fraught with frustration.  We were forced to bark threats and brandish blade in order to summon reaction from brutality-numbed slaves and herd them toward tunnel entrance.

Euclid and his team of assistants had made admirable attempt at forming order from chaos, but there stood too many men and women for meal lines to be practical.  Instead, flat bread was distributed to the hands of those passing through the main gate itself, setting foot to path in wake of Spartacus and Mira.

“I pray Crixus has seen to Nola’s fall,” Lydon remarked, joining our gathering as Agron and Duro gaped at the sea of bodies.

Indeed.  Though portions of a size less than half of what a child would receive were offered to each freed slave, we would not have enough to share with all.

Thoughts turned toward my little Syrians.  I was relieved that Santos had accepted charge of looking after the children at camp until I could procure lodgings in Nola and retrieve them myself.  In addition to possessing unflappable calm, Batiatus’ former body slave also knew a variety of words spoken in Syria.

“Only a few,” the man had warned, but he could recite numbers, list food items, and give basic commands.  There were few people better qualified to tend to the little monsters and keep them separate and safe.  I would not have them anywhere near battle-rowdy Gauls and former gladiators who at this moment likely ran rampant in Nola’s streets.  Nor would I allow their young eyes to gaze upon these mines and the utter hopelessness and misery that Rome forced upon its slaves.

“A long, hard fight,” Duro mused with satisfaction.

Agron whapped him upon back of filthy head.  “Those were not the words you bleated within tunnel.”

Duro gave his brother a sour frown.  “I withstood thinning patience with the fortitude of a hundred men.”

“Thank the gods there stands only one of you in that case,” I jibed.

“You are fucking--”

“No one at the moment,” I interrupted, grinning gleefully.

“And I would hope entertaining thoughts of me in the meantime,” Agron added with a waggle of brows.

I wagged mine once in silent confirmation.

“Irritating.  The both of you,” Duro attempted to growl through lips twitching with exasperated smile.  “Get on with it and fuck each other, then.”

So stood our intent.  Following discharge of duties and a very hot, thorough bath.

However.

In order to obtain those luxuries and welcome respite, we would first have to take the road to Nola.

I had traveled to the city only twice and only then under the glare of hot sun.  Clear memory blurred, smearing against the reality of midnight-shrouded roofs and walls and streets… and fading at the first tortured moan.

My feet slowed as doubt overtook me.  What was this?  What--

Oh gods save us.

“Nasir!  Duro!  Assistance!”

Though he had not been called by name, Agron accompanied us to nearby inn in the wake of a woman who had served under the same sick fuck that Simon had suffered in Neapolis.  I found my friend directing three surgeries at once while a line of freed men and women possessed of steady hand and stomach cleansed and stitched wounds of those just liberated.

“Nasir!  Take hold of this one!  Duro, that woman, there!”  Without waiting for direction, Agron rushed to the third, pinning the shoulders of a man of middle years as glowing-hot steel was pressed to the stump where his hand had been.

My own charge -- a man smeared with filth from the mines -- required restraint so that spoiled flesh could be cut cleanly away from wound, but the man beneath Agron’s strong grip--  

Tilting my brow in his direction, I inquired to the woman who had hailed us: “Was his hand lost in battle?”

“No.  Before the Romans made escape, they took measure to ensure that we would not be adding able bodies to our ranks.”

Duro’s jaw clenched.  Agron snarled blindly at the delirious man upon table top.  A whiff of charred flesh somehow slipped into nose and my stomach heaved.  Fuck.  How did a day spent deep in the filthy mines allow for any sense of smell at all?

“Little brother?” Duro asked hesitantly.

Jaw clenched, I nodded.  I would keep the contents of belly behind my teeth.  I would not waste food when so many had been forced to go without.

The night was measured in sounds of agony.  The scent of festering flesh.  Glowing blades pulled from coals.  The clank and rattle of fire being stoked.  Astringent vinegar.  The rhythmic motions of stitches threading through abused flesh.  I could not count the number of men, women, and children shoved onto benches and tables to await care.  Some expired of their wounds before treatment began.  Those still in possession of their senses, we sought to soothe with idle inquiries.  Duro and I asked their names, homelands, favored tales.  Agron noted our success in distracting frantic patients from unavoidable pain and quickly echoed our methods.

Eventually, Naevia crossed the threshold and ordered all of us away to take rest.  She assumed mantle of medica and her team of stalwart volunteers took over for Simon’s.  Rhaskos, Acer, and Fortis moved to place their hands where ours had rested, bracing and restraining.

“Hold firm and voice gentle,” I somehow found the presence of mind to mutter to Fortis.  “Have him speak.  To distract from pain.  Such lightens your duties.”

He appeared genuinely glad of the advice and sickened by the procedures going on around him.  “Well received.”

How Agron found the strength to carry Simon upstairs to an empty bed, I knew not.  I could only marvel.  My hands shook with exhaustion as I held Simon steady so he could piss in bucket, rinse hands from pitcher, and wash face.

“Will you three remain?” he requested quietly.

“Should you wish it,” Agron surprised me by agreeing.

Simon nodded.  “I would have my mightiest friends near this night... or what remains of it.”

“Then so we shall stand,” Duro replied, slumped against open doorway.  “Or perhaps sprawl.  Mighty we may be in spirit, but body demands rest.”

“Then rest,” Simon allowed, eyes already closed, “and I shall take mine.”

He was softly snoring before Duro had cleaned himself up as best he was able with a few splashes in water and use of rag to scrub away dampened filth.  Agron waited for me to take my turn and I fell back against the blanket spread out upon wooden floor, holding no memory of Agron joining me until the cramping of empty belly nudged me to wakefulness.

And then our combined stench refused to permit me peace.  I crawled to the window, propping shutters open for the sake of welcome breeze and tilted face toward fresh air.  Well, relatively fresh.  Still, even inn’s back alley exuded a more pleasant aroma than myself and my roommates.

Agron stirred shortly with a grimace.  “Fuck the gods.  Pluto has tossed us to Cerberus.”

I chortled.  “Lucius once accused -- the three of us would stand as that three-headed monster of myth.”

My lover’s lips quirked.  “The Roman shit paid compliment and I only now hear of it?”

“Apologies.  He was adamant you remain ignorant of his admiration.”

“Ha!” Agron softly coughed, peeking at me through one dark-shadowed eye.  “A wise course.  Else Duro would dog his heels for scraps.”

“Fuck off,” our little brother mumbled, and then added, “in silence.”

I pushed my aching body upright and offered arm to Agron.  He accepted and paused as I roused Simon to inform him that Agron and I would seek separate accommodations for all of us, and then we made quiet our escape from fetid room.  By the gods, should there be an unoccupied bath in this fucking city, we would find it.  A few turns led us to a quiet street where Agron banged fist upon five doors before receiving silence in reply.  He shouldered it open and, finding it empty of occupant, we claimed its comforts for ourselves.

The promise of a bath, a meal, and a soft bed.

In the first we quickly indulged, but refrained from pouncing immediately upon the latter two with admirable effort.  “Collect Duro and Simon, should he elect to rest with us.”  I offered, “I prepare meal and ready bath for them.”

Only Duro returned with Agron to the small domus.

I prompted of them both: “Simon?”

“I am Duro and he is Agron,” I was cheekily informed.

“Continue lecture and I piss in your cup.”

Agron grinned.  “And it will be far preferred to vile fucking posca.  Simon is attended by friends and intends to return to charge.”

“We should lend aid.”

“We should fucking rescue Santos from the little monsters,” Duro insisted, gleefully falling upon meal laid out upon table, devouring both his portion and Simon’s before crawling into a narrow bed arranged above the kitchen at top of rickety ladder.  Agron and I claimed the one that surely must have been used by the dominus and domina before their flight.  The slave whose bed Duro now used… had he or she been forced to surrender hand or foot before being abandoned in a pool of blood?

“Honorless Roman shit,” I complained, burrowing my nose into the crook of Agron’s clean armpit, preferring the scent of bath oil and faint traces of familiar musk to the perfume clinging to the bedclothes.

He scooted closer and hummed a vague agreement against my washed hair.  “Such words stir ardor.”

“Fuck,” I barked softly, laughing.

He chuckled.  “So you demand, I will oblige.”

I made attempt to lift weary head.  Failed.  Sighed against his arm.  “By all means,” I invited.

He pressed lips to my hair, inhaled greedily against tumbled tendrils, and then groaned in defeat.  “I shall see to it presently.”

I woke to the sound of front door slamming shut.  Grunting, I pushed myself up from Agron’s embrace.  He flexed the arm that had been pinned beneath my neck, fingers clenching and splaying open to invite the return of blood to flesh.  “Apologies,” I mumbled distractedly.  “Duro leaves…?”

“To seek Spartacus,” Agron replied.

“And will expect to be fed upon his return with news.”

“You know him well.”

A slow smile curled my lips as I leaned over Agron’s chest, pushing him onto his back.  “I would know you better.”

Hands curling lightly upon my neck, fingers sifting through loose strands, Agron’s golden-brown eyes focusing upon my throat.  Moments later, the flesh there was ardently attended by breath and lips and I found myself slipping between his parted thighs, cock aligning with cock.  I did not bother to seek nearest pot of oil.  We had not the time for proper celebration, but I would feel him.  Us.  I would feel and have and give and take and--this.  Just this.

We moved together until warmth glowed beneath skin and heat zipped through veins, zoomed down tingling spine and erupted from pulsing cock to the sound of desperate gasps.  Agron’s hands yet roamed in the wake of our mutual destruction, petting spine and teasing tailbone.

I moaned in appreciation, encouragement, awe.  “You do not tire of me?”

His low chuckle raised the fine hairs at nape of neck and pebbled the flesh upon arms.  “You dare speak such a thing?”

“I dare many things.”

“Yes,” he breathed in reply, his tone marveling.  “Yes, you do.”

With reluctance, we rose from bed.  Washed slick seed and cloying perfume from skin.  Rinsed mouths and chewed herbs to freshen breath.  Agron stole a kiss as we dressed, another as we assembled a meal for Duro’s return, and several more as we put the kitchen to rights for its next use.

Agron was nibbling at a wedge of cheese and I had just popped a brine olive into my mouth, thumb yet suckled between lips, when a knock came upon the door.

Gaze tracking the movements of my mouth and fingers, Agron bluntly refused interruption: “Piss off!”

I snorted, and Duro blithely stuck his head into the room.  “Thank the gods.  Food!”

“The gods did not prepare it,” I staunchly retorted, looking up as the door remained open and Spartacus’ shadow darkened threshold.

“Be glad cocks are not in use!” Agron snapped before realizing that Duro did not return alone.  He glanced at Spartacus in time to receive a smug, little grin from the Thracian and -- fuck the gods -- a giggle from Mira who followed in his wake and -- fuck all to shit and piss! -- Gannicus’ broad grin and Crixus’ droll look.

The seven of us crowded around the small table, Agron surging to his feet to clasp arms with Spartacus over the successful taking of the mines, and to acknowledge Crixus and Gannicus’ efforts here at Nola.  As I moved to do likewise, including compliment to Mira on her team’s indispensable contribution, Agron and Duro began assembling makeshift seating from two empty crates and a stool dragged indoors from the tiny yard in back.  By the time I placed more clean cups on the table, Crixus and Gannicus had already consumed half the food.

“You have heard,” Crixus began unhappily, “or seen with own eyes the measure of Roman cruelty in this fucking city.”

Duro nodded.  “We assisted Simon with many of them.”

Spartacus sighed down at the platter he shared with Mira, the food thereupon yet untouched.  “We could not have known.”

“I would have warned against some manner of reprisal,” Gannicus said, morose angle of brows tightening with anger, “for wealthy fucks are a vicious lot, but I assumed we had not allowed them enough time.”

“Fucking guards,” Crixus spat, pushing his empty platter aside.

“Not Roman soldiers?” I queried.

Mira shook her head.  “According to the slave women I spoke to, private guards of prominent Romans were dispatched to hobble,” she gritted out, her entire frame tensing with fury, “any man or woman who remained, whether Roman or slave.”

“They do this to their own people?” Duro gurgled past a half-chewed bite of salted pork.

Spartacus quietly offered reminder: “Have you forgotten Lucius’ story?”

“Fuck,” Agron opined, “the Romans themselves aid our cause to bring this fucking Republic to ruin.”

Mira and I looked at each other before turning to Spartacus.  His shoulders slumped, but before he could speak, Crixus snarled: “They say blame upon our blades.”

“You fucking jest!” Duro sputtered.

Gannicus chortled darkly.  “This is their way.”

“You’ve seen such in your travels?” Mira asked for sake of confirmation.

“On many occasions.  There are those who issue command -- and others who are brought to task for it.”

The legs of my wooden stool stuttered across thickening silence as I stood and went to the pantry.  The small below-ground cellar space held a variety of foodstuffs -- cured meat, cheese, brine olives, sacks of tubers, onions, cabbage, bunches of garlic -- as well as an amphora of wine that was less than half full.  I brought it out and set it upon the table.

Gannicus gazed at me as if I had just descended from the heavens upon cloud and sunbeam.  “You are gods sent, Nasir,” Gannicus informed, reaching for the clay vessel.  “Should you ever tire of fucking these Germans, seek me out.  Though I prefer cunt, for a man of your quality, I would make exception!”

I rolled my eyes at his blatant teasing.  Not even Agron took the remark to heart if his burgeoning smile was any indication.

Crixus shook his head in mock despair as Gannicus sloshed an equal portion of water into cup.  “You are a whore for wine.”

“And I will stand by that charge!”

“Mira,” I spoke, returning to issue of dire consequences, “was city evacuation begun before Crixus’ forces came within sight?”

She neither bit lip nor pursed mouth, but her eyes burned with anger.  “I share the same thought, but have received varying accounts on it.”

I turned to Crixus.  “Did you see anyone fleeing upon the road?”

“None.”

“They received word well in advance then,” Gannicus concluded in off-handed tone.  Already, the wine had eased a measure of his tension.

“By one among us?”  From terse expression, Mira had held such suspicions for some time.

Spartacus shifted, placing palm upon her arm.  “We do not occupy forests of Vesuvius alone.”

Crixus frowned.  “Thieves would bother keeping watch on our movements and making report on them for what purpose?”

“Coin,” Gannicus readily offered with a shrug.

Murmured words left my lips slowly as mind raced: “And successful taking of the city would see us from their territory upon which we hunt and raid.”  I shot to my feet, stool tumbling over with a clatter.  “The children.  Santos.”

Agron was already gathering our empty water skins.

“Fuck!” Duro effused, joining us in making hasty preparations.

“We would aid you, brothers,” Spartacus said, offering himself and Mira.

I put out a hand to stay their efforts to rise.  “No.  The people here require Spartacus.  And those who seek freedom would cast gaze upon you.”  Agron passed forward my sword belt.

Pointing a finger at the Thracian, I bid, “If the Romans of this city would ruin their own people and slaves, then drink not from the well.  Someone here will know the way to nearby river.  Quench thirst from there.”

He nodded and made to rise.

Crixus bid him stay: “I will see to it now.  Eat and take fucking rest.”

He and Mira could use the bed of this domus if they preferred.  Agron and I would have no need of it this night.

The children.  Theleda, Thelmenis, Oruros, Emesa, Demetrias, Cholle, Alias, Seriane…

_****Fuck!** ** _

Weapons, water, food -- done.

I rushed out of doors to receive the warm, beaming-and-blushing farewell of setting sun.  A hand upon my neck and cheek.  Another curled over shoulder.

“We are with you, brother,” Duro vowed, voice solemn with hard purpose.

I looked to Agron, who ducked down to level our gazes.  “We return the little ones to your arms.”

I clasped them both near in silent gratitude.  The sting of tears and tightness of throat preventing words from reaching tongue.

My brothers did not appear to mind.

As one, we turned toward Vesuvius with quick feet and racing heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to find information and/or a historical account on Spartacus’ followers liberating the mines (or any mines) but, alas. All I could discover was what was posted on Spartacus Wiki. So I don’t have independent corroboration that this thing happened. But as the mines were a pretty important aspect in the TV show, I wanted them to be featured in APMF, too. Also, I wanted to take the opportunity to show why Nasir feared being sent to the mines more than he feared public execution in The Recruit: Chapter 1.
> 
> I saw a documentary on Spartacus and the Third Serville War where a historian talked about Romans fleeing their villas and towns when they got word that Spartacus’ group was on the way. But before they left, the residents maimed their slaves to prevent them from adding their strength to Spartacus’ army. So, it’s possible that really happened -- where or how often, we have no real way of knowing.
> 
> Really, any historical account can’t be taken at face value: most were written by someone who is relying on second or third-hand testimony perhaps decades after the fact. So I’m assuming that I have a lot of leeway with the who-did-what-and-when as well as other details.


	3. Breaking Camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: GORE (description of mortal wounds), sexytimes (because Nasir and Agron cannot keep their hands off of each other)

No.

A small form, sprawled face-down in the dark beneath shelter of tree limbs--

I crashed to my knees beside the body, brushed tangled hair back from brow and felt for breath upon my palm.  Nothing.

No!

Gently tilting the small face toward faint starlight, I blinked, gaped, turned to stone at the mighty _****thud!****_  of agony slamming against breastbone--

Cholle.  No.  No no no--

Agron crouched beside me and placed gentle touch upon her bare arm.  The show of care was beyond my ability to withstand.  My eyes burned and throat liquefied--

“She’s still warm,” Agron murmured on a breath.

Duro growled, voice distorted by fury, “The fucks can’t be far.  Come, brother.  Let us hunt some fucking Romans.”

I should.  I should stand up and into the rage that I could feel surging up around me.  Crashing waves.  So easily the tide would overwhelm as it had in the wake of Simon’s crucifixion.  Fury swelled beneath skin and the temptation to cease my struggles and permit myself to submerge completely pulled-and-twisted--

“Cholle,” I finally managed to whisper and, before senses could slip from grasp, I quickly stuttered through the words that had moved my Syrian boys and girls to teary smiles atop Vesuvius.  I loved her.  I was proud of her.  I would avenge her.  I--

Beneath my trembling fingertips, eyelashes fluttered.  The tiny body shifted, chest swelling with breath.  “Nasir?”

Oh gods.  She yet lived.  Oh gods, _****please.****_

“Yes,” I shushed her gently.  “Yes, I return.  Do not move--no--Cholle, take pause--your wounds!”  But she clambered into my lap and latched her spindly arms around my neck with surprising strength.

Agron chuckled with relief and patted her head -- Cholle was the little girl he’d carried away from Neapolis as Duro had sung to his own charge in German -- and Agron wryly mused, “I suspect show of injury false.”

The sound of Duro’s laughter joined in.  “And unless I am mistaken, an army of little monsters surrounds us, eager to cause pain.  Fuck the gods.”

“Fuck the gods!” Oruros trumpeted eagerly, leaping forward to pile himself upon my shoulders.

“Oomph!” I grunted, and suddenly shadows were separating from trees and brush in the darkness, hurling themselves at the three of us.  “How many do you count?” I managed to ask my brothers while I could yet draw breath for words.

“Um… ten?  No, eleven.  Yes.  Eleven!”

“Twelve.”

“Eleven!”

“Any number beyond accounting upon fingers and you are fucking hopeless.”

“Fucking--Agron, you fucking goatfuck, I fucking know enough numbers to--”

This could go on well past dawn.  “Duro, we must locate Santos.”  And should he be unable to give report of what had transpired in our absence -- and explain what had prompted at least ten of my little monsters to set and bait a trap in middle of night -- then we would be forced to wait until our return to Nola and Adal’s translation.

“Santos!”  A tug on my arm accompanied the outburst by Demetrias.  “Come, Nasir.   _ ** **Santos!”****_

Santos was indeed happy to receive us -- Agron, Duro, our escort of _****ten****_  bounding children, and myself -- especially as the cut upon his back required competent bandaging.

“This was made with sword?” Agron asked of the man as Duro wrapped the wound.  I had worked quickly to rinse it with vinegar, stitch flesh closed where scabs had not already formed, and dab gobs of poultice along its lengthy span.  Fortunately, not all our medicines had made the trip to Nola with Naevia and Simon.  Despite treatment, Santos’ back would scar horribly at best.  And it might yet become polluted with sweat and whatever else, leading to fever and worse.

But I would not consider the worst possible outcome prematurely.

“Sword?  No.”  Santos sighed heavily, partly in self-reproach and partly in relief.  “A knife wielded by one of the men who claim these lands for their own use.”

Before treating Santos, I had taken count of my rambunctious charges -- all thirty-seven seemed to be unharmed, but I now sought additional confirmation: “Do any others suffer wounds?”

“No,” Santos hurried to assure me.  “The brigands sought to cut my throat first.”

No doubt believing that the children would be helpless absent his aid.  Clearly, these men had not seen the training sessions that had taken place in temple yard.

Santos continued, “They came upon me in a moment of… er, privacy.”  His head bobbled and gaze shifted away from Agron’s frown.  Santos prompted meaningfully: “In the woods.  Attack came as I took leaf in grasp…”

A grin-snort-giggle accompanied Duro’s assessment: “What a fright!  I would wager you filled shithole to brimming, eh?”

Santos flushed, dark skin darkening even further with mortification.

Eager to save him, I gave reply: “It brings great pleasure to learn that they failed in attempt.”

“Despite wound, I would agree,” Santos spoke through a grin.  “And I owe much gratitude to Oenomaus for instruction.”

“We all owe him debts of similar measure,” Agron allowed.

“But what of these fucking swine cunts that made attempt on your life?” Duro insisted.  “I would choke breath from their fucking lungs.”

Santos nodded toward one of the furthest tents.  “None have words left to break, but you are welcome to cast gaze upon their corpses.”

I did, though I could not fully separate myself from the children milling about hips and waist, still seeking reassuring touch.  My attention was understandably distracted as I pulled back tent flap and gazed at three men, ankles tied with crudely fashioned twine, the muscle of inner thighs grinning with gaping wounds and necks sliced after the fact.

Just as Oenomaus and I had taught them: should escape be impossible and knife at hand, a deep cut to inner thigh to bleed enemy quickly, a second to top of heel to prevent swift chase, and a third to fallen opponent’s throat to ensure peace of mind.

I pointed to the first man.  “Who among you felled him?”

Two boys stepped forward, visibly braced for scolding.  I kissed their brows and then gestured to the next body.  Theleda and Thelmenis claimed that kill and kisses for it.  The third brought Oruros and two of his friends forward for reward.  Then I asked whose hands had woven twine and whose strength had dragged the thieves into concealing tent -- from the absence of blood upon hard-packed dirt, they had been slain elsewhere -- and then the few children who had not come forward were offered kisses as well.  No one stood excluded from either necessary deeds or my pride.

“And the victors claim prize,” Santos murmured with amusement.

“Ha!  Good luck getting a fuck out of him tonight,” I heard Duro drawl at Agron who was looking on with a bright smile.  He rolled his eyes and whacked Duro across back of head.

Though the force of the blow tilted Duro’s brow forward, it did nothing to dislodge his smirking grin.

“With your arrival, perhaps the little ones will rest,” Santos assessed.

“Have they abstained?”

He answered my query with a tired nod.  “Such stands as the reason I yet draw breath,” he allowed.

Hm.  Perhaps the children had seen or heard something to prompt them to stand guard and watch over Santos.  Such would not surprise me.

As a little less than half the night remained, I directed everyone to wash hands and face and take rest around the campfire that Agron stoked.  The children refused to allow me from their sight, not even as I relieved myself among the trees; I had no choice but to lie down among the cluster of bedding beneath the stars with my charges.  Santos lowered himself to a cot within nearest tent with an audible and appreciative groan.

“We stand guard,” Agron quietly assured, volunteering himself and Duro.

I shook my head.  “I will watch from here.  Patrol as necessary.”

He pressed a soft kiss to my lips and nodded for Duro to follow.

“Worry not, little brother,” he teased with a wink.  “Tomorrow night I will stand with Santos and you may have Agron do your bidding once again.”

“So speaks he as though king of all he surveys.”

He brayed a laugh at my wit, shook a finger in my face, and bounded after Agron.

The children slept soundly until well past dawn, clearly exhausted.  When Santos rose to prepare rations for morning meal, he offered me a wide smile and observation: “Your absence was much missed.”

“They honor me with their trust.”

“Hard earned.”

The clamor Agron and Duro caused with their return to fireside woke even the sleepiest child and then the gurgling of empty bellies demanded use of hands to operate food toward mouths.  Santos and Duro gathered everyone and sorted them into teams for harvesting kindling, leaving Agron and myself to rest until midday.

“I entrust you to guard these tents well!” Duro further jested and I scowled at his unending levity.

“Your will, my hands,” I drolly intoned.

“Piss off,” Agron ordered his brother, plopping unceremoniously down upon cot and throwing an arm over his eyes.

Duro wiggled his furry brows at us.  “Already the old man shirks charge!”

I shoved his face back through the tent flaps which rippled shut in his wake.  “What prompts such fucking cheer?” I desired to know.

Agron’s lips smacked, vibrating comically as he blew out a breath.  “You.”

“Pardon?”

“Duro’s darkness is as deep as his happiness is bright.  When we discovered Cholle…”  Agron removed arm, cast gaze toward me as I sat at his side before shaking his head.  “Duro would have only let you lead hunt for her assailants out of love for you and recognition of your right to seek vengeance.”

But such a thing would mean-- “Does he hold so much love for the little monsters?”

“You do, and thus, so does he.”

My mouth dropped open.  Agron smirked at my wordless gawp until I summoned comment: “And his cheer now?”

“Your little monsters are all safe and rested and fed and you are happy.”  Jerking chin toward the tent flaps, Agron told, “Now he does what he can to aid you.”

“So stands a brother’s charge?” I breathed, loosening sandal laces upon Agron’s unwashed feet with firm tugs.

He smiled, lifting a hand to my cheek, attempting to nimbly tuck my mussed hair into some semblance of order.  “It so stands,” he agreed.

“And what of a lover’s charge?” I persisted.

Wordlessly, he reached for my belt buckle and it fell to the ground with a clatter.  He shrugged his own free from over shoulder as I toed off my own footwear.  He held out his arms and I fell against him.

Given the depths of my exhaustion, I felt he ought to receive warning: “I may drool upon your bare skin.”

“I may snore.”

“Hm.  So be it.”

We slept.

A tap upon shoulder woke me for midday meal.  “Up and eat, brothers.  I would enjoy cot while it is yet warm.”

I sat up and winced at the glistening puddle upon Agron’s chest.  He roused as I attempted to wipe the moisture away and grinned stupidly at me in response.  “Your threat proved both true _****and****_  terrible.”

Glancing up at Duro, I asked, “Did Agron’s snores reach your ears?”

He barked: “They reached ears in fucking Capua!”

I smacked Agron on the arm with back of hand in reprimand for heaping all faults upon me.  His loose-limbed happiness was undiminished.

Shoes upon feet and weapons once more secured in place, we surrendered the tent.  Duro claimed our cot.  The second received Santos’ boneless sprawl upon belly.

And now Agron and I had charge of thirty-seven restless children until sunset.  Following meal, we trained them in wrestling and tumbling, and then Agron and I took them on a short hike to set snares.

Two more days passed thus before visitors arrived.  Lysandros and Adal led a group of Syrians, including eight fighters and twelve of the youths who I knew to be skilled in archery.

“Does Spartacus summon us to Nola?”

“Well, first he would be pleased to know that none of you accompany the Ferryman.”

“We do not,” Agron answered with a smirk.  “Though three back-stabbing thieves now negotiate passage across the Styx.”

“By your hand?”  Adal summarized, “Most fortunate timing on your part.”

“No.”  I gave smug correction: “You also make mistake of underestimating opponent.”

“Santos?” Lysandros queried with a pointed look toward the former body slave, who shook his head.

Adal took my meaning first, inhaling sharply.

Lysandros gaped at the children who were warmly greeting their fellow Syrians.  “Well.  Lick my hole.”

I sputtered a laugh as Agron huffed, releasing a puff of humor.  Duro scolded the young man, “You have spent too much time alongside Crixus.  Come, let us teach you the proper way to curse, eh?”

We had many opportunities for foul words; none among us had ever assembled much less collapsed Roman army tents and the process seemed unnecessarily complicated and pedantic in nature.  Knots that must be loosened in specific order and rods released of charge in odd sequence.  We were tempted to leave the things where they stood, but Spartacus had asked us to salvage as much as possible.  The journey ahead -- to wherever we would winter -- would be very long indeed.

By noon of the second day, our work was intermittently punctuated by the voices of children yelling obscenities in moments of both fun and frustration.

I winced as sweet, gentle Theleda shrieked, “Fuck!” in response to tripping on a trailing end of piled tent cloth.

“Duro,” I began conversationally.

He turned attention from Theleda’s outburst and beamed, clearly enjoying how readily the children mimicked him.

I spoke suggestion: “As my charges seem to have grasped proper usage of curses, might you endeavor to teach them other words?”

“As you insist.”  He still looked far too gleeful.  “Though I shall have to make much use of Agron for demonstration of ‘goat.’”

Gods save us.

“Just--close mouth,” I commanded.

He obediently pressed lips tightly together.  A giggle escaped through nose.

It rained the following day, the heavens tipping brimming cups upon our heads.  The wagons that Varinius’ army had used to haul provisions stood ready for trip to Nola, but we elected to wait out the damp within remaining tents and load carts once the deluge came to an end.

I voiced no complaint at having Agron all to myself upon comfort of dry cot for one more night.  He nuzzled my neck and bussed soft kisses against skin, shrugging himself as close as weighted fabric and wooden frame allowed.  I lent aid, pulling myself flush against him.

“I dream of your cock,” Agron purred into my ear, raising a sudden and shocking wave of heat upon my skin, pushing blood faster through veins.

“No oil,” I reminded him on a groan.

“Nola will provide it.”

And Agron would slay -- with bare hands if necessary -- anyone to deny us use of it.  I grinned.  Teased: “You would not wait until we make winter camp?”

“Fucking venture may require weeks with so many slow of foot.”

“And wagons.”

“I would not have you in a wagon.”

“A genuine relief to hear.”

I did not earn anticipated chuckle.  Instead, his hand drifted over the scar upon my side.  “I had never witnessed you absent strength.  And for days--words broken beyond recognition by fever…”  He shook his head, unable to describe further.

Fuck, I had genuinely frightened him.  Although, when I had willfully departed his company weeks later…  “Yet you did not insist on accompanying me to Beneventum.”

“I did.”

“But honored my will in that you and Duro lead the way to Vesuvius.”

“If you would not have me at your side for venture, then I would provide welcome sanctuary upon your return.”

“Agron… no, of course I held no desire to be parted from you -- or Duro -- but you had already voiced intent.  Committed hands to endeavor.  As had I -- to stand for freedom of choice -- and,” I licked parched lips, “my words set us upon separate paths.”

His fingers curled against my back with unease.  Ah, how easily he spoke his mind through motion of hand.

I leaned up, bracing myself upon his chest, and met his gaze to give solemn vow: “No longer.  We three stand together.”

He lifted arm to sift through my hair, slowly picking at the tie that held much of it away from brow. I smiled, well aware that he would cease should I object.  I did not.

At the sight of tresses cascading against cheek and jaw, his throat flexed, tense as he forced a swallow.  “Recent days, though fraught, offer much simplicity.”

“Should events tangle, I would not abandon you.”  Gazing up at him through brows as I pressed kisses to his bared chest, my loosened hair tickling and teasing in my wake, I offered reminder: “Just as you and Duro pledged loyalty to both beast and brother.”

At last, Agron’s lips curved with true joy.  Considering how much of that very thing he evoked from me, I would see it repaid.  This night, I whispered narration into his ear of my every intention as hands massaged between his thighs until he coaxed my hips flush and we rubbed mindlessly against each other -- cursing through the friction -- to reach completion.

“You make boast,” Agron panted softly in our aftermath, “of impossible acts.”

I laughed.  “Time, oil, and bed of accommodating height and stability will change your opinion.”

“Fuck.  See it done, Nasir.”

I would.  Once rain ceased and roads dried and arrival at Nola was made, I hunted for a vessel of oil to illustrate the acts I had softly slipped into Agron’s ear.  A suitable bed had already been procured, Agron vowing to guard it until my return, and now that the children slept in villa’s main dining room and our duties completed for the day, nothing would prevent me from providing thorough demonstration of--

“Gannicus!” I yelped, nearly fumbling the clay vessel in my grasp.

The Celt chuckled from where he lounged in shadow under cellar steps, amphora held in grasp and idly rocking it to and fro against the dirt floor.  “Nasir.  Lay hand upon all the oil you desire.  I lay claim to the wine!”

Squinting in the gloom, I mused, “Little wonder we make such good friends.”

“Ha!  Ha-ha!  You speak truth.  As always.”

Hesitating to return upstairs, I informed him: “It is nearly midnight.”

“Hmm.”

“How long have you been drinking?”

He chuckled, the sound dry and mirth dark.  “I could not say.  This cellar is well stocked.”  His elbow nudged an empty jug which clanked against an equally empty neighbor.  “What day is today?”

Biting back a sigh, I obliged: “It is midnight following market day.”

Gannicus nodded as if I had illuminated the secrets of the ancients.  “Well, I recall wetting my tongue with wine offered by your hand -- well-received, by the way! -- and have made a constant companion of its taste since!”

Fuck.  “Journey commences at dawn following tomorrow’s dusk.  And even you will not be able to carry enough drink to sate your thirst upon the road.”

“Then I make haste and drink ‘til I burst here!”

This time, I did not bother to conceal my sigh.  Setting the oil down upon an empty shelf, I took a seat against wall opposite the inebriated man.  “Break words now, Celt, lest I be forced to strain them from the slosh that is left in your wake.”

He giggled.  “Such wit.  I’ve not made acquaintance of many Syrians.  Are all so possessed of wit?”

Thinking of Adal, I generalized: “We share a love for it, I suppose.”

“Ah, love.”

“And you?”

“Me?  Simple answers all: wine, women, fucking, fighting!”

“All risky ventures.”

“Fuck!  There’s that wit again.  Do your Germans understand even half your words?”

“And appreciate every one.”

“Fortuna blessed.”

“And you she forsakes?”

“Ah, no.  I fuck myself in ass.”

“And wine aids in sitting comfortably.”

Throwing back his head, skull connecting against wall with a dull _****thud!,****_  he barked a laugh up at the ground floor overhead.  “Until the walls begin to spin.”

“Then come -- seek freedom from dizzying embrace out of doors in fresh air.”

He sighed.  “Perhaps I will.  There’ll be no further delay now that your lot has arrived.”

“Had Spartacus been awaiting us?”

“Of course!  The road we take to death and ruin begins here--”  He illustrated with aid of sweeping gesture.  “--far from Vesuvius.”

It seemed odd for a god of the arena to hold such cares.  I inquired: “Our death and ruin?”

Gannicus snorted.  “Fuck, no!  The death and ruin of kind and good people I came to know in Metapontum.”

“Metapontum.  This would be our destination?”

“And upon our arrival, it shall become their end.”

Gannicus envisioned a similar fate to what so many had suffered here in Nola?  “And what aid does wine provide?”

“Pfft.  I know not.”

But neither could I offer a better alternative.  Instead, I placed an amphora of clean water at his side and bid him to drink it absent wine and take rest.  “May the muse visit you in dreams, brother, and provide what wine does not.”

As I retrieved the container of oil, I was relieved to see him roll the wine amphora aside and take a lusty gulp of the water.  I disliked the notion of leaving him alone in dank Roman cellar, and, upon crossing paths with Tilius and Lydon, asked if they would assist me in seeing Gannicus upstairs and into bed.  Or some resemblance of one.

Lydon held up a hand to stall my words.  “I shall take rest with him in cellar.  Lack of windows will be a kindness upon waking.”

Tilius offered, “I collect bedding.”

“Gratitude.”  I spoke no protest regarding how soiled the blankets would surely become.  We would soon depart this place and, should those blankets not find their way onto cart, enslaved hands would surely be charged with washing them.

Yes, I could well understand the cause of Gannicus’ heartache.  No matter what we did or where we ventured, someone innocent of involvement would sweat or bleed for our cause: so many men and women had lost limbs here, and those returning to Nola would be forced to set to rights what our ungoverned numbers had left shambled.

And there were still more living in ignorance upon our path ahead…

With sharp twitch of jaw and chin, I shuffled those thoughts aside.  Come morning, I would break words with Spartacus and Oenomaus.  Crixus and Agron and Duro.  We could not allow what had occurred here in Nola -- or some variation -- to become commonplace should any measure of it prove avoidable.

“Nasir?”

I looked up from threshold, caught breathless at the sight of my lover in the process of sitting up from luxuriously made bed.  In flickering light, his bare skin was revealed in smooth planes, lines of perfection shaded in mysteries I would discover.

Clearing throat, I rasped, “Apologies for delay.”

“Lamp thirsts for oil,” he informed, making no attempt to conceal his cock’s interest in coming delights.

I glanced toward flame sputtering upon wick.  Approached.  Tilted the jug into lamp basin in attendance of task and inquired, “And you?”

“Hm.  I thirst for you.”

In lamp light’s golden glow, he offered temptation away from dire thoughts and harsh consequence.  Temptation I gladly embraced along with all the other good things our cause had wrought:

Freed house slaves whose hands now claimed bold purpose.

German and Gallic warriors who would never be condemned to the mines.

Syrian men, youths, and children who would suffer neither Roman collar nor sting of whiplash.

Pompeii gladiators and ludus slaves whose blood would no longer be spilled for purpose of Roman entertainment.

All this, and there was yet more good to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter made me realize that Agron and Duro should definitely (never) be put jointly in charge of a children’s summer camp. Can you imagine the potty mouths those kids would go home with? Yikes! Also, Agron and Duro might lose a few because, hey, miscounts happen…especially when the little monsters won’t hold still.
> 
> Also, I believe Rome (up until 45 BC?) used an 8-day week. The eighth day was “market day.”
> 
> Just to be clear, Sinuessa en Vale is NOT the place where Spartacus intends to spend the winter training his army. We'll learn more about Metapontum later.


	4. South and East (Duro POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duro POV
> 
> WARNINGS: GORE (violence), DEATH, reference to sexytimes (Nasir/Agron, Mira/Spartacus, Saxa/Gannicus), jokes about Nemetes/Sedullus (who are not an actual couple... probably), attempted NCS (canon compliant), reference to past NCS (Nasir's time as "Tiberius")

Celts.

Especially this fucking Celt.

I scowled, watching him scuff through the dust beside cart like a one-eyed, bow-legged goat.  “Do all who hail from your homelands suffer so wretchedly from drink?”

He grimaced away from the sound of my voice.  “Fuck yourself in shit and piss, German.”

With a snort, I drew conclusion: “Your answer would be ‘yes’ then.”

“Ugh.  Name your fucking desire and see yourself from sight.”

“First,” I hastily corrected assumption, “I make request on Nasir’s behalf.”

That gained his attention.  Heh.  Should Agron neglect our little Syrian brother, I held no doubt Gannicus would stand ready to offer Nasir a cup of wine, a shoulder to lean on, and a good deal of charm.  Fucking Celt.

Gaze flying up to where my brows were arched in blatant speculation, his expression immediately soured: “What does that fucking Syrian want?”

Rolling my jaw, I drawled with much innocence: “What offense could possibly draw your ire?”

“The fucking world draws it forth today.  Speak, German.”

I huffed.  “For some fucking reason or other, Nasir would ask you to join him, Agron, and myself--”

“I do not fuck men.”

“I know of no one who would give shit.  Now let me fucking finish breaking words--”

“And what threat would you make were I to deny you?”

“I require none when Agron also stands charged with seeing Nasir’s will done.”

“Dogs, the both of you.”

“Perhaps you heard -- the scar Nasir bears upon his side was gained in effort that saved my life.  He asks for little, and what he asks for, Agron and I would search Rome from top to bottom to lay hand upon.  Now,” I began again, “he would have you stand with us and lend sword to venture--”

“What fucking venture?” he sighed out.

“If you would fucking let me finish!” I retorted, voice overloud and grin widening at his flinch.  Clearing throat, I explained to the dense little clod: “We move ahead to take villas between here and Nuceria.  So.  Would you kill some fucking Romans with us or not?”

“Hm,” he grunted, trying not to look flattered that Nasir would request his aid despite the fucking wrecked state he was in.  “And should I decline?” he tested.

I pushed back: “Then surrender swords and see more capable hands put them to use.”

Holding out hand to receive the weapons I was fairly sure would have to be forced from his cold, dead fingers was the measure that tipped the scales.  “Paws away, pup!”  He knocked my arm aside and glared balefully toward the front of haphazardly arranged caravan with a resigned look.  With a second sigh, he relented: “It will shut your mouth at least, will it not?”

I giggled.  “You are not well acquainted with Germans.”

“Continue fucking nattering and you’ll become well acquainted with my swords.”

I could guarantee mouth shut.  The grin, however, I made no effort to restrain.  Nasir seemed genuinely glad of the Celt’s assistance.  A sentiment I shared that night when villa walls were scaled, gate unlatched from within, and steel clanging against steel in yard, upon portico, and within atrium.

The guards were no match for us.  And with how quickly Gannicus cut through them, I doubled my efforts to satisfactory fucking result: “Five!” I crowed victoriously to Agron, who cast disbelieving gaze skyward with shake of head, and also to Nasir who smiled indulgently.  I tallied: “That one beside gate, and that one in front of stables, and this one here at steps’ base, and the one there under eaves, and the fifth floats in fucking useless pool in atrium!”

“Well done, Duro,” Nasir congratulated with fond punch to my arm.

“Well done, Duro!” Gannicus mocked in a high tone, an amphora of wine clutched in one blood-splattered hand and unsheathed blade yet in the other.

“You--fucking--do you seek to drown yourself in wine?” I sputtered.

Nasir scolded: “You sniffed out cellar so quickly?”

Gannicus smirked but froze as my guffaw ricocheted.

“Ha!  Now who stands the pup, Celt?”

The Celt lifted sword menacingly.  “Repeat fucking words once I have broken wax seal and quenched thirst.  Or will they have passed from thought and memory by then?”

“Gannicus,” Nasir chided and my grin widened at the man’s defiantly angled chin.  “With wine in hand and excitement from battle yet pumping blood in veins, can you not spare a little civility?”

“Psh!  Civility is for Romans who would fucking stab friend in back.”

Agron chuckled.  “Then by all means, play the part of sour fuck and rancid piss.”

Cracking the wax seal and popping it loose with practiced motion of blade, the Celt laughed.  “All the better to shorten the distance between your throat and my sword.”

“A step ladder would suffice.”

Nasir smacked my brother on the shoulder with back of hand.

Agron affected surprise at the reprimand.  Fuck.  He either stood as the dimmest shit in the Republic or the bravest.  Nasir pointed a finger in his face.  “You seek excuse to be tumbled to the dust by my hand.”

“In answer to what insult?”

I squashed my lips into a flat line as Nasir’s eyes narrowed.  “Continue pressing fucking fortune.”

Swallowing down an undiluted gulp of wine, Gannicus chortled.  “I told you those Germans only heed every other word!”

Agron looked delighted at this.  “Continue fucking?  I shall see it done!”

I snorted.  “Why do I not stand surprised?”

My little Syrian brother, on the other hand, appeared oddly endeared by Agron’s ridiculous jest.

The Celt took notice.  “Are all Syrians as strange in their preferences as you, brother?”

Nasir shrugged one shoulder.  “Says the man who would fuck a wine jug had it a warm cunt.”

“Fuck!” I roared with laughter.  Agron beamed hard enough to crack teeth.  And the Celt, who had just taken a confident swig from amphora, heaved with sudden mirth.  A dribble of the wine trickled out of his nose and tinkled back into vessel.

My little Syrian brother noted, “That turn of… events would have been avoided had you elected to sip from cup.”

“Regardless, that jug is yours,” I wheezed at the Celt as he sniffed and coughed and winced through drink’s bite.

Agron noted of his witty, warrior lover, “Your bite is felt even from a distance.”

“I would have you make note of it.”

“And would you have additional service from me?”

Nasir fought a glowing smile.  “Once our duties are discharged for the night?  Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” I echoed, scoffing.  “He says it as though the sounds of your fucking won’t keep us all awake until midnight.”

“Ha!  Ha-ha!” the Celt barked.  “In that case, I claim the cellar for my rest.”

“Nasir,” I commanded, “were I to find loudly complaining board or tile above this fucking Celt’s head, would you please--?”

“Fuck your brother senseless upon it?  Of course, Duro.  Of course.”

The Celt shifted to retreat into the villa, but just then our brethren -- Lydon, Livaticcus, Saxa, Lugo, and Pollux -- began shooing the house slaves out into the yard.  Caught between them, Gannicus was forced to delay retreat.

I felt his gaze as he watched Agron speak of Spartacus and rebellion.  The Celt studied my reassuring manner and Nasir’s competent management as I charmed smiles forth and he soothed troubled thoughts.

“The Romans that dwell here?” Nasir asked of Pollux, who intoned: “For the afterlife.”

Because this Syrian stood as my brother, I could see the displeasure in his gaze -- Nasir had spoken of his intent to interview the Romans regarding news and surroundings before putting them under blade -- but he merely asked if any among us had suffered wound.

“Saxa!” I called and informed her in German, gesturing to top of villa’s wall: “Come.  You and I have first watch.”

Though I made only idle attempt at conversation, I noted how her gaze followed Gannicus as he drank upon the portico, pissed in the shadows, and refused both slave women who approached him, one after the other.  When Lydon sat beside him uninvited, the Celt offered amphora… from which the Iberian drank in ignorance of Gannicus’, er, contribution to it.

I snickered and that drew Saxa’s attention.  “Does he favor cock the same as your brother?”

“Hm?  Lydon, you mean?  I have no knowledge of it.”

Saxa rolled her eyes.  “You know I watch Gannicus, you fucking child.”

I smirked.  “Yes, and I object.  A Celt, Saxa?  Truly?  What of your favor towards Nemetes?”

She leaned back on her hands, balancing precariously atop wall.  “Eh.  He would prefer to bend over for Sedullus.”

Thoughts stuttered as my mind tripped very unhappily upon gruesome imagining.  I blurted: “He stands man enough?”

“Nemetes or Sedullus?”

An excellent point.  I shrugged.  “Both?”

“Ha!” she laughed up at the night sky.  “I have seen Sedullus’ cock.  It is…”  Her mouth warped into a thoughtful moue and hand gestured to indicate middling worth.

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen it as well,” I grumbled.  Thankfully not often.  Would that the Gauls could manage as well to keep their subligaria properly fucking tied.

“So you ask after Nemetes’ ass?”  Her smile turned wolfish.

I threw a hand up between us.  “Close mouth.  Upon further consideration, I withdraw question.”

She chuckled, kicking her heels against the wall.

But I could not stop the query from bursting forth: “But a fucking Celt, Saxa?”

“They say he stands a god of the arena.”  At my quirked brow, she added, “A god of battle at very least.”

“And for what aim do you pursue him, woman?  You speak not the same fucking language.”

“No language is necessary for fucking.”

I would differ.  Agron and Nasir certainly utilized words in intimate moments -- as did Spartacus and Mira -- though the words themselves were always indistinct, they were very much present in both solemn and ardent tones.  “Nor for fighting,” I pointed out warningly.

She threw her mane of blond hair back and, smiling viciously, returned barb: “You are jealous.”

“Saxa, I would fight you only with grave reservations.”

She bumped my arm.  “You know my meaning, little boy.”

“Speak fucking offense again and find yourself tumbled from wall.”

She hummed.

Below, Lydon stood, patted Gannicus on the shoulder, and took his leave to seek rest.  He would take fourth watch with Pollux.

Saxa asked with surprising softness, “Where did she go -- your woman?”

I sighed.  “To the safety of a Roman city.”

“Is there such a place?”

“She’s not like us.”

“No, of course she wouldn’t be.”

“Your meaning?” I challenged with hard, sidelong glare.

Saxa’s smile was almost sympathetic.  “No one raised in the wilds east of the Rhine could endure such torment.”

“Heh.  You speak truth.”

Saxa reached over an patted my knee in a condescending manner.  “She does not possess the only cunt in the world, brother.”

I affected a sigh and shake of head.  “Saxa, I’ll not fuck you, either.”

She shoved at my shoulder and said no more.  I was simply relieved that she made no request that I provide translation between herself and Gannicus.  Instead, I found myself thinking of Pompeii.  I wondered if Donar yet lived, if he had furthered Calius’ education in sword and shield, if Janus called either of them “uncle.”  I wondered if she--

No.  No, no good would or could come from dwelling on what was not meant to be.

Instead, I considered the goatfucked alliance of Nemetes and Sedullus.

Upon completion of watch, I reluctantly sought Agron and Nasir to relieve Saxa and myself, and was surprised to find both my brothers awake and vertical.  Well, mostly.  They leaned over the dead Roman’s desk, studying maps and other scrolls by lamp light.  Agron focused upon the maps’ illustrations while Nasir sifted through various documents.

“A rare sight -- the two of you alone and surrounded by four walls and yet no cock dangles free.”

“Apologies for disappointment,” Nasir mumbled, the little shit.

I promptly delivered the shock he’d earned: “Nemetes discards Saxa.”

Agron rolled a shoulder in approximation of a shrug.  “Then he is soon to make acquaintance of the Ferryman, is he not?”

Nasir, however, was now gazing upon me intently.  “Nemetes continues to advise Sedullus.”

“Advise,” Agron jeered.  “He fucking incites--”

“Yes,” I agreed.  “So stands my meaning.”

My older brother finally looked up and, straightening, joined discussion in earnest.  “How many would follow him?”

“Were we seen more often attending to our countrymen, fewer in number than they now stand,” I baldly stated.

Nasir nodded.  “I would be closer to the Syrians as well.”

Agron inquired to him, “Then, you deem this mission a success?”

I quirked a brow, awaiting Nasir’s verdict.

“You were fully obnoxious,” he told me.  “Gratitude, Duro.”

“My absolute pleasure.”

Both my brothers grinned, knowing full well that I meant every word.

“Still, the wine,” Agron spoke, brow quirking.

Nasir sighed.  “He is a man grown.  We can but show him the manner of men and women his actions liberate… and the manner of Romans we dispose of.”

That night, the sounds of fucking came not from Agron and Nasir, but from Gannicus and Saxa.  I glared up at protico’s eves and focused upon Lugo’s snores.  When I heard the slosh of the Celt’s wine amphora and Saxa’s laughter, I smirked; an amusement well worth cost paid in lost slumber.

The following morning, I bit my tongue rather than inform Saxa of exactly what she’d drunk the night before.  She would likely gut me for not warning her in advance.

Wine.  Fucking.  Fighting.  Gannicus was a man renewed.  He readily volunteered for the first wave to take Nuceria.  We launched attack two days later in dead of night, leaving the Roman city gasping in our wake.  Quick hands stripped the hapless town of grain, wagons, and slaves thirsting for freedom.

Fuck the gods.  I had required neither wine nor women in the wake of battle’s rush.  Six more Roman soldiers added to my tally alongside the whoremonger who had erred mightily in attempting to solicit my interest in the shivering, collared woman he’d commanded.

“Have you family in this town?  Anyone who would take you in?  A safe place?” I'd pressed, eager to be gone from that shit-smeared alley before the dying whoremonger’s blood could darken my sandals.

She had shaken her head, dark eyes wide.

“Know you the way to Nuceria granary?”

She’d nodded, turning to lead the way and eyes widening as I’d called for Agron, Nasir, and Lugo to join us.  No doubt the poor thing had thought we would each take a turn with her, but between my smile and Nasir’s soft-spoken words, she’d maintained hold upon senses though it would take much more than a few moments’ effort to see the guarded quality from her frightened gaze and stiff shoulders.

We’d twisted through narrow passages, pausing at her direction and avoiding a fair number of unaware Romans.  Once fires had been set and panic incited, we had cracked open granary door and prepared the grain for transport, Salaminias and Libo arriving with carts of good quality driven by strong horses.

The whore had flinched when I’d gestured her close and she’d cringed as I’d sawed collar from her slender neck.  “He is Libo,” I’d informed her, pointing toward the old Iberian.  “Stay with him.  You are safe.”

She had then and now she was.  I saw her on occasion as our numbers continued along the road.  I had learned her name was Glima and she hailed from Syria.  Cholle, though years younger, quickly took charge of her daily needs and more than once I shared a proud smile with Nasir at the sight of the two girls with their heads bent together or hands moving in concert, attending to some task.

“One by one,” Agron summarized, slinging an unwashed arm over my shoulders and tucking himself between me and Nasir to share our sense of accomplishment.  Which must have been great, indeed, to overwhelm Nasir’s usual grimace at the stink of stale sweat.

Rather than shuffle and stomp alongside the wagons of the caravan, Gannicus gleefully embraced our previous methods, leaping tirelessly from villa to villa to liberate as many slaves -- and supplies -- as quickly as possible.

“A useful shit, that Celt,” I appraised and Agron agreed: “He sees our growing numbers provided with shelter and sustenance.”

Nasir quietly added: “And silences the voices that would command harm inflicted before order is given.”

Agron grunted.  “Little wonder the man made attempt to pickle himself in wine at Nola.”

“How was he to blame for the actions of those twisted Roman fucks?” I shot back, befuddled.

Agron explained as he always did, tone airy with distraction… as if he couldn’t be bothered with my confusion: “He wasn’t.  His recommendation leads us southeast to a town where he counts many friends.”

“Winemakers, then?” I teased.

Nasir shook his head at me in skin-stinging disappointment.  “Let us hope that we move swiftly enough to take like-minded Romans by surprise.  I’ve had my fill of cauterizing stumps of flesh.”

Ugh.  As had I.

The next town -- Salernum, according to Nasir and the maps he had taken from the first villa -- anticipated our arrival by mere moments.  Dominus and domina hastily sought shelter behind ancient castrum’s fortifications, watching from the battlements as their slaves took to the streets.  Freed men and women feasted rambunctiously alongside our ranks, draped in their master’s and mistress’ fine robes, drinking, and singing loudly enough to make the gods cringe.

What glorious chaos!

Nasir laughed as Lugo eagerly endeavored to learn the unintelligible words to a song that was being drunkenly warbled.  “They celebrate as if it were Saturnalia forevermore.”

Agron inquired after the festival for the both of us and I barely heard Nasir’s description.  And when Agron tapped my shoulder -- “Come.  We search for beds.” -- I waved them both away.

“I shall find my own and rejoin you on the morrow.”

Our parting was made easier by lack of argument, but I now found myself facing the most difficult task of all: companionship.

Gannicus and Saxa were inseparable -- quite _****literally****_  much of the time.  Spartacus and Mira roamed the streets somewhere, eyes open and smiles welcoming.  Crixus and Naevia had undoubtedly entwined themselves beyond sight.  Lugo was ever happy to drink with me, but he would bid me to carouse ‘til dawn and I would take fucking rest.

I sought quiet rooftop and discovered a silent Numidian contemplating the horizon.

“Oenomaus,” I greeted.

He answered, “Duro.”

We gazed into the darkness and passed a water skin between us.

I did not ask who filled his thoughts.  He did not ask who filled mine or why I looked back the way we had come, toward Vesuvius and the town of Pompeii at its base.  Only a day’s ride away, or half a night across countryside--

No.  I had already wished her well.  And with hands as bloodstained as mine, it was best that I remained at a distance.

Though, Donar would surely envy me the Roman shits I had slain.

I permitted myself to enjoy the thought with a rueful smile until Oenomaus took notice and tilted his head in question.

I opened mouth--

“Ha!  Ha-ha!”

And closed it again with a roll of my eyes as Gannicus’ unfettered laughter tumbled along the thoroughfare, burbling all the way up to the rooftops.  Leaning forward to gain uninterrupted view, I snickered and snorted as he made an ass of himself dancing with a group of freed men -- each with bared neck showing a pale band of flesh from collar’s recent removal -- sloshing wine cups in hand.

“I can name no other man who more fully embraced the life of a gladiator,” Oenomaus mused.

Brows pinched, I inquired, “And so he was set free?”

“And so he was cast out,” Oenomaus corrected.

“He did not wish for freedom?”

“He did not understand it.  He had never lived absent master’s care and direction.”  Glancing down into the throng beneath us, he allowed, “Perhaps he will learn.”

And have a wonderful fucking time until then.

The port of Picentia tempted us with moored ships, but with no one among our numbers skilled in sailing, we satisfied ourselves by emptying larders, granaries, and every whorehouse.

I took a great deal of enjoyment putting each confirmed fleshmonger to grass.  My Syrian brother’s words from months ago warning me against welcoming Roman attention -- _****“And if the interested party is male?”****  _\-- had given me a new hatred for their kind.

And then Crixus proposed the grandest fucking entertainment yet conceived: games of blood and combat between captured Roman soldiers and guards.  They battled to the death in Picentia’s town square.  And fuck the gods -- _****yes.****_   This was fucking beautiful.  I cheered alongside Crixus and Naevia at each near miss and blood-spewing hit.

Agron and Nasir stood nearby, though neither joined the festivities.  Once upon a time, my brother would have roared his approval louder than even I could.  Perhaps unrelated troubles weighed thoughts.  I would ask.  After this final fight, I would make query toward--

“What is this?” Spartacus demanded and I startled at his sudden appearance, recovering smile and nodding to Mira.  Wherever our Thracian had gone -- perhaps at his woman’s insistence that he fucking rest -- I did not know, but commotion from city square had certainly succeeded in drawing his attention.

Crixus laughed.  “Though Picentia lacks arena, we make do.”

“Games?” the Thracian flatly summarized, gaze riveted upon the combatants.

At the Gaul’s nod, Mira inquired tersely, “And what of the victor?”

Crixus shrugged.  “Let him toddle back to Rome with tail between legs.”

With a toothy grin, I brayed, “And who will heed such a pathetic fuck when he makes attempt to tell his story?”

Fatal hit landed.  The injured man fumbled to press hand to belly in effort of keeping blood within body, but there was no cure for that strike.  His gods had well and truly pissed on him this day.  He looked to his exhausted opponent for mercy.

As if it were fucking deserved.  Fucking Romans.

Gladius shook in trembling hands as the soon-to-be victor gulped air into burning lungs.

Heh.  Which would he gather first, strength or courage?  I was content to let the other fuck bleed out.  Slowly.  Painfully.

With a soft hiss of metal sliding from scabbard, Spartacus unsheathed sword and marched up behind the dying man, cleanly inserting blade through back, stopping his heart.  The body fell, landed in a boneless heap.

The _****splat!****_  of flesh striking stone echoed in the sudden, startled silence.

The tip of Spartacus’ sword dripped with blood as he lifted chin and pointed to the gore at his feet.  “Is this what we are?  The rabble of the arena?”

At this he looked to Crixus and I felt a shock zip through my veins from heart to fingertips and toes.

Spartacus inquired, “We spill blood not to see our brethren freed from Rome, but out of boredom?”

Crixus met the challenge with arms crossed over chest: “These men are for the afterlife.  We would give them some fucking purpose to fight for.”

Spartacus nodded.  “And should the sight of their blood and sounds of their pain heal injury inflicted by Rome, I’ll not interfere again.”

My gaze lowered, chin tucking to chest and squeezing suddenly dry throat, but I refused to allow shame a foothold.  Rome had demanded blood, sweat, and death from me and my brothers.  It had demanded even more of Nasir… and yet this afternoon’s games did not offer him comfort.  This was clear with a fleeting glance: Nasir’s drawn brow and Agron’s hand upon his shoulder, thumb stroking back and forth.

Goatfuck.

Spartacus stood correct.  I had succumbed to bloodlust, boredom, and mean-spirited cruelty worthy of fucking Romans.

What became of the Roman left standing at games’ conclusion I did not know.  I turned away and offered apologetic look to my brothers; I was done with drawing glee from meaninglessly spilled blood.  Our venture -- Spartacus’ cause -- stood as the greatest uprising in memory.  I committed to that purpose.  I could think of nothing that would turn me fully from the enjoyment of slaying Roman shit, but I would not become Roman myself in that endeavor.

The following morning, Agron and Nasir rose to find me already training with Oenomaus.

“You fight as a man possessed,” my little Syrian brother observed with quiet happiness.

“I am,” I agreed, “possessed of inspired purpose.”

“That being?” Agron desired to know.

“Well, as I’ve already slain more Romans than the both of you put together, I would best that fucking Celt’s tally next!”

Agron snorted.  “Shall I fetch him an amphora?” he drawled over-sweetly.

“Please do,” Nasir goaded.  “For he fights better when taken by drink.”

I growled at the both of them and returned to training for the next battle.

The sprawling, wall-less town of Eburi would view us from half a day’s journey distant.  We raided by horseback, riding hard in dead of night and slamming through the streets.  Spartacus roared and slashed with spear, commanding his mount by knee and shift of weight.  A level of skill that neither Agron nor Nasir nor myself could manage, but from the adoring gaze Agron besottedly bestowed on his lover in blood-smeared embrace at battle’s aftermath, I knew this night had not seen the last of beasts to be mounted and ridden hard.  Though which role each would take, I hoped to never know.

Vulceium fell the morning after Eburi.  As both towns shared the same wide, basin plain, news would spread fast of a sister city’s fall.  Gannicus and Crixus rode ahead accompanied by the Gauls and men from Pompeii.  By the time Spartacus, the Brotherhood, Germans, Syrians, and freed house slaves passed through upon the road nearly five days later, there was little left to be called a town.

Tucked against forested hillside, Atina presented little in the way of challenge.  The Brotherhood and trained house slaves who itched to test themselves saw to its defeat as the rest of us divided and conquered scattered villas.  The villa that Agron, Nasir, and I took housed only a half dozen guards to its four dozen field workers.

“We have entered the winter months,” Nasir said, as if that fucking explained anything.

“Therefore…?” I prompted.

“Therefore, Roman master and mistress retire to domus within city, leaving guards to supply rations to workers here.”

“Rations, eh?” I doubted aloud.

“Well,” my Syrian brother elaborated with a truly frightful scowl aimed at the man he had stabbed in groin before gutting.  “The guards also ration the most comely of the workers among themselves.”

I did not ask if he spoke from experience.  Neither did Agron.  And if Nasir’s efforts during the following morning’s training were doubly vicious, well, so fucking be it.  Beast and brother: we had vowed to accept both.

Exhaustion nipped at our heels as we pushed onward through the hills and under cover of autumn-colored boughs toward Anxia.  The final town of any size before the last leg of our journey toward Metapontum.  Spartacus had yet to name our destination, but Nasir confided it to Agron and myself absent hesitation -- yet coupled the words with dire threat: “Unless you would see events of Nola repeated, speak of this to no one.”

Nola.  Severed limbs and screams and seared flesh and Gannicus drinking himself to the point that I thought he would start sweating wine in battle.

Fuck the gods.

“My mouth is shut on the matter,” I vowed, wishing the same were true of those fucking Gauls.

Though my brothers and I now enjoyed a quiet table in a room above the hall of Anxia’s only inn, I could clearly hear the Gauls shouting tunelessly through yet another fucking repetition of “My Cock Rages On.”  The racket was joined by occasional roars from Germans: when I had passed by earlier in search of a jug of wine for myself and my brothers, Lugo had been insistently coaxing one of the stockier Syrians into a match of arm wrestling.  By the sound of it, not only was the sport ongoing, but someone had just won in dramatic manner.  The fucking floorboards vibrated beneath my feet.

“What yet remains in our path?” Agron asked, twirling his cup idly around and around.  Fuck but he was the slowest fucking drinker in all the Republic.  He was yet on his first cup.  Nasir was down to the dregs of his fourth but appeared still in firm command of senses -- he’d grown accustomed to larger and larger quantities of wine in recent weeks -- and as for me… well, fuck.  I’d lost count of my own cups at some point.  I held the vague suspicion that this boded ill, but was far too relaxed to give shit.

Nasir drew a deep breath, studying Agron’s flushed cheeks -- why was my brother so fucking red in the face when he’d yet to drink more than… oh, fuck.

“Nasir!” I barked, disregarding the fact that he’d been on the verge of breaking words of importance.  “Do you fucking fondle Agron’s balls with your foul foot beneath this fucking table?”

Nasir snorted out a chuckle and Agron hitched his hips forward in his seat.  Answer enough.

I held up my hands in surrender.  “Well.  Fuck.  See to each other then.”  Standing up with care, I grabbed for the wine jug -- there was yet a little remaining, but our water skin had been emptied -- and proclaimed, “And I shall see to wine and, perhaps, arm wrestling.  Do make some attempt not to moan overloudly, eh?”

“Duro?” Agron mused lightly, his gaze fixed upon Nasir’s tongue as the tip poked out to wet lips.  “Go piss.  Elsewhere.”

“Fucking gladly!”

I slammed the door shut behind me for good measure and toddled my way down the stairs to the ground floor.  For once, I was grateful for tuneless, bellowing Gauls.  I’d even join in and bleat along with those half-deaf goat cunts if it meant filling my ears full to brimming with something aside from the sounds of Agron and Nasir fucking.

But first!  Before errand slipped my mind and horizontal excursions upon upper level gained in volume to pass through shuttered window, I would water the wine in this fucking jug.

Or perhaps piss first?  Yes.  Piss first.  A wise choice when the sight and sound of streaming water stood as genuine torment to overfull bladder.

“--tell him.”

I blearily registered the sound of a familiar female voice coming from the back yard beyond open kitchen door.

“His eyes -- no love.”

Eh?  Was that--did my ears fucking deceive?  Yes.  Of course they did.  I gave my head a sharp shake… which was a grave mistake.  It set the world spinning so abruptly that I fumbled for the door frame to catch myself.

The woman answered stiffly.  “He needs time.”

“His eyes,” the man insisted on a growl that spoke of either severe drunkenness or blatant desire… or both, “not like your eyes -- better.”

Fuck.  Truly?  By Jupiter’s limp and bouncing cock, this shit’s attempts at charm reeked worse than Agron’s.  Perhaps I ought to cause interruption.  Any more of this drivel and I would empty stomach upon kitchen floor.

“I--”

A gasp.  The _****plop-splat-slosh!****_  of a water skin striking hard-packed dirt -- a water skin that was very full, my bladder informed me with a deep and painful throb.  A scuffle of feet.

A woman’s whimper.

A man’s snarl.

Oh, fuck.  I needed to be in that yard _****now.****_

I crashed through the doorway and down the steps, amphora at the ready for swinging and bashing and yes I would fucking paint the ground with its wine and even stand in stead of that little Roman goat cunt who had torn my Syrian brother’s face open with strike from clay vessel if it saw this woman -- _****Zaria, Chadara, Aurelia!****_  -- free of brutish grasp--

“AAAGH!”  A woman’s battle cry.  A man’s roar of agony.

Naevia shoved Sedullus’ hulking, slouched-and-cringing form aside with rage-fueled strength.

I blinked in the gleam of yellow firelight spilling through open doorway from hall’s hearth.  Its shine reflected along bloodied blade and in wide dark eyes and upon bared teeth.

“Er, Naevia?” I checked, belatedly wondering at the wisdom of announcing my presence.

A moment’s pause as her bristling, feral expression ceded to calm.  “Duro?”

“Um.  Might I offer assistance?”

She straightened and gave me a considering look.  I gaped as she knelt and calmly wiped blade clean upon Sedullus’ vest.  He appeared unaware of her proximity.  In truth, had I just taken a dagger to cock and balls, I doubted there was much that could remove my attention from their immediate care.

I startled at the sound of knife sliding back into sheath and watched dumbly as Naevia collected dropped water skin, sauntered up to me and, reaching out, collected the jug still clutched in my numb fingers.

“Eh… not watered.  That’s not watered,” I warned weakly but made no attempt to pull it from her grasp.

She took a deep gulp before relinquishing amphora back into my command.  “Gratitude.”

With a sharp grin -- lips stained dark with wine -- and blood spattered upon her slender hands, she blithely shoved her way through kitchen door to rejoin inn’s celebration.  The Gauls and Germans carried on in ignorance -- as if the smallest warrior among our ranks had not just felled its largest with a fucking knife.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

And then Sedullus moaned and realization hit: I now stood charged with seeing this moronic lummox to treatment.  He’d surely gain none from Naevia and I had no notion of where to find Simon, which left only one other who I had seen sew stitches in flesh--

“Fuck!” I repeated, glancing up at the window I was fairly sure looked in on Agron and Nasir’s room.

Sending a furious glare at the sobbing mess of wasted German flesh, I snarled, “For position you force upon me, I shall inform Nasir of precisely why you require reattachment of cock and balls!”

And I would not pity the brainless fuck in the slightest for the revenge Nasir would exact… not only in payment for harming a dear friend, but for untimely interruption.

Stomping through kitchen to retrace steps taken, I paused upon painful revelation that not only was I about to suffer the sight of my brother bare-assed and cock pointing to north fucking star, but I had not pissed, either!

“FUCK!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The towns in this chapter were taken from a map of ancient Southern Italy that I managed to find online. I’m not sure how old it is, but it shows “Capua,” “Neapolis,” “Atella,” “Pompeii,” and “Herculaneum” (so presumably the information dates to before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD).
> 
> Vulceium might also be spelled as Fulceium.
> 
> In at least one account of Spartacus’ movements, his followers spent the winter in the declining, seaside city of Metapontum. Whether that supposedly happened during the first winter of the Third Serville War or the second, I cannot be certain. In APMF, it’s the winter of 73-72 BC.
> 
> And YES, there is a “she” in Pompeii that Duro is trying very hard not to think about. The poor, soft-hearted putz.
> 
> Naevia vs. Sedullus -- this plot point was set in stone for this series fairly early on and will lead to an alternate history. I’ll provide more notes when we get there.
> 
> So, Naevia was always going to use the skills Nasir taught her in “Fugitives” to deal with Sedullus’ Very Unwelcome advances here. I did not, however, expect her to be such an unrepentant badass in the aftermath (and I am all for badass!Naevia, so this was a pleasant surprise). Nor did I anticipate Duro “witnessing” the altercation. Or him being so RIDCULOUSLY PEEVED at Sedullus for (more or less) ALL THE WRONG THINGS: J(uptier’s) f(ucking) c(ock), Duro’s all, “I hate you because (1) you tried to hurt Naevia and I like her way better than I like you, (2) you’re an idiot and I’m ashamed to call you a fellow countryman, (3) now I have to go get an eyeful of my brother and Nasir, and (4) I JUST WANTED TO PISS DAMN IT ALL (and, yeah, maybe water this wine a bit because WHEW POTENT STUFF… that clearly Naevia enjoys drinking straight holy-shit-fuck).”


	5. Cock and Balls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: GORE (medicinal -- yup, guess who gets his unmentionables sewn back on!), SEXYTIMES (think: 3x01 Nagron things), DEATH (of innocent bystanders/collateral damage during battle)
> 
> Words spoken in Greek are underlined.

Choice.

Though I fought to offer freedom of choice to unshackled hands, the battles themselves were dirty, bloody, miserable tests of strength and instinct.  There was no room for honor or lofty ideals.  In town after town and villa after villa, I set hands to purpose for the sake of the men, women, and children who were owed the ability to grasp life in both hands.  I would see them form intent and seek purpose.  I would watch them err and triumph and _****live.****_

It was with this same mindset that I stitched Sedullus’ sliced flesh.  In truth, I did not feel that he deserved to keep either cock or balls given his trespass against an ally, but I did not possess the right to take anything _****from****_  him.

Except his life, should he threaten either my own or that of my brothers’ or the welfare of my charges.  Now that I was fully informed of the events which had led to him taking knife in groin, I secretly hoped that he would make a target of me.  I would be well-prepared to meet his challenge.

To that aim, I denied Sedullus both tonic to ease the pain and haven of slumber.  He roared and frothed and cursed; I worked as slowly as I dared in the lamp light of nearby Roman domus.  The kitchen table accommodated a surprising amount of the brainless fuck’s bulk.  But even with Agron, Duro, Lugo, and Totus holding him fast, those bulging, pain-and-fury fueled muscles would eventually win out against four battle-exhausted men in various states of drunkenness.  Of all of them, Agron appeared the most steadfast and committed to purpose.  For various reasons.

My lips quirked as I recalled his reaction to the racket of fist thudding upon locked door and Duro’s shout of “Medicus is required!”

Agron had groaned, not simply because his cock had been in the achingly slow process of breaching my gently-stretched and oil-slicked passage.  Gods save me, his skills had reached ever greater heights since setting foot from Nola.

“Seek Naevia!” I’d selfishly replied, scratching over Agron’s scalp, brushing fingertips along the back of each arm, and palming hips.  I’d urged him to continue advance between my thighs.

Fuck, but I needed this -- Agron’s big body and formidable intent devoted to my pleasure.  So good.  Better than wine.  In the wake of taking yet another Roman town, I needed to be reminded of all the good that I fought for: him and us and freedom of choice and I chose _****this.****_   I had defied Roman whim, grasped sword’s pommel, and gained the power to choose this.

From the dingy corridor, Duro had slurred, “Naevia, yes.  It was she who, er, inflicted wound.”

I’d gasped as cock head rubbed over my pleasure and then pushed deeper, leaving me dazed at the feel of him.

“Upon whom?” Agron had shouted back, obeying my silent demand and mindless attempt to pull him closer, closer, closer.

“Um… ah, Sedullus?”

Agron had rolled his eyes and then his hips, sheathing himself fully and _****oh gods!****_   “Let the Ferryman decide his fate.”

I’d hissed in pleasure and impatience and Agron had grinned boastfully down at me--

“Fuck the Ferryman!  It will be Crixus who disposes of him.  Would you have our forces divided once more, Gauls against Germans?”

“Ah, no,” I’d groaned just as Agron had rocked back in well-practiced motion, cock skimming, pressing, rubbing, sizzling mind-blanking heat through my every vein.  But… Gauls standing against Germans?  Again?  Ah, no.  No no no.

I’d flattened palms against Agron’s waist.  “We must intercede.”

“Fuck!” my lover had remarked, head bowing until brow pressed to the center of my chest.

Fuck, indeed.

A promise for later.

I now asked the men who crowded against Sedullus’ prone form in makeshift infirmary: “Stands there any advantage in detailing the consequences should this swine shit force his unwelcome presence upon another -- in any manner -- beyond borders of battlefield?”

Duro snorted.  “None.  He’s too fucking drunk to remember naught but the pain come morning.”

“As it will be the pain that no doubt wakes him, I stand content with knowledge of his continued torment.”  I jabbed his flaccid cock with needle and grinned at Totus’ sympathetic whimper.  “Hold him fucking still,” I barked at the man with equal measures of glee and irritation, “or else it will be you he blames for having to piss out his ass for the remainder of his days.”

Agron obligingly translated.  Totus girded loins and strengthened grasp.

Clearing throat, the fourth of my assistants mumbled, “Lugo and Nasir friends, yes?”

I sent him a brief glare.  Tugged string taut.  Tied it off with no care for gentling touch.  I then turned attention to the state of the man’s balls.  Naevia had come very close to making a eunuch of him.

As I was no healer, Lysandros and Vitus had volunteered to locate a medicum should one stand among our ranks though I was certain they searched in vain.  To my knowledge, we had not yet gained a healer in our travels and Anxia’s residents -- those who yet lived -- had scattered into the surrounding hills or sought shelter at nearby farms.

Simon remained our most well-versed in mending flesh wounds, but I would not ask him to part with time or instruction to aid a worthless fuck who would have stood indistinguishable among clientele of that pit-of-a-whorehouse in Neapolis.

Stitches sewn, I grabbed Duro’s amphora of wine.  The four men reaffirmed hold upon their charge.  I splashed the unwatered drink upon Sedullus’ torn skin a second time -- the first had been when I’d wetted the rag used to staunch flow of blood before lifting it away and Totus had been sent crashing toward the hearth as his countryman had objected with flailing limbs and screaming curses.

Apparently, the man was too spent to do much more that holler at the ceiling and clench fists, which was just as well considering the fact that the strength of each man pinning him down was visibly flagging.

“How did the lands east of the Rhine produce such a witless fuck?” Duro complained as we shut the door behind us.  Sedullus had passed out upon the kitchen table where we had left him, groin bandaged but wound untreated with poultice.  Its acquisition stood as my next task but the man could fucking apply it himself.

Agron growled.  “We should have killed the shit back at Vesuvius.”

“But then who would Nemetes utilize for his schemes?” I posited, my anger yet simmering beneath skin.

Duro coughed out a phlegmy laugh.  “He’d have rallied every German to fuck us in ass.”

Out of spite if not out of ambition to claim the vacancy left in Sedullus’ wake.

“Speaking of fucking a man in ass…” my annoying young brother mused, wiggling his eyebrows at me and Agron in turns.

“You are not fucking invited,” Agron informed him flatly.

“Ugh!  I merely--you--just fucking piss off,” Duro complained, taking himself and what remained of his amphora back to Anxia’s inn.

When I turned away to follow the street toward town square, Agron’s hand trailed along my arm, calling me back.  “We do not return to our room?”

“Reclaim it,” I bid him, “and I meet you there.”

He smiled a kiss against my lips and I was required to force my feet to move.  In the domus of Anxia’s most prominent family, I found a member of Simon’s team holding vigil.  From the former whore, I requested poultice for stitched wound and she scooped out a measure into cloth, which I delivered to Sedullus’ place of rest.

And then I cleared mind of unwelcome thoughts.

Returning to the inn, I caught Naevia’s gaze in the yet crowded hall -- the Gauls had quieted their singing and now seemed content to roll dice and compare battle prowess.  Crixus lorded over the rowdiest table as Naevia lounged in quiet shadow.  She arched a brow at me in challenge and I grinned my full approval of her skill.

“Technique proves true,” she reminded me and I paused beside her at base of stairs.  “Gratitude for instruction on how to separate a man from his cock.”

“I regret only that it was necessary,” I replied.

She retorted tersely, “And I regret it was not fatal wound.”

“Indeed,” I sighed, confirming that Sedullus yet lived.  “Yet most men would argue his condition a fate worse than death.”

“In that case, its cause shall remain among the three of us.”

“Six,” I corrected and gave her the names of my other assistants.  Nodding toward Lugo and Totus across the room where they seemed determined to drink disturbing and haunting images away, I assessed, “It is not every day men face reminder of the fact that there are places in this world where their cock is unwelcome.”

“Or likely to be removed and worn as trophy.”

I sputtered with mirth.  A necklace of preserved cocks -- I could easily imagine such a thing proudly worn by my fearsome friend.  “For now I would enjoy the use of Agron’s.”

She laughed, bright and happy.  With a swat to my shoulder, she sent me on my way with friendly blessings.

Blessings.  I could count many, beginning with the very fortunate fact that either our room had remained vacant in our absence or Agron had successfully removed any trespassers.

His voice answered my knock upon door: “Nasir?”

“Yes, may I enter?”

“If you do not, I will come after you.”

Fuck, he surely would.  As tempted as I was to make a game of chase out of our night, I did not.  I would save my energy for other pursuits.  Pushing the door open, I felt my jaw drop at the sight of Agron bare and aroused in the soft lamp light, holding out a hand to me.

I kicked the door shut and fumbled the lock closed behind me.  And then I discarded shoes, weapons, and clothing absent care for where they landed, and shrugged myself into his embrace.

“Hmm,” he rumbled, raising prickles of sensation along my arms and back of neck as his kisses conquered my mouth.  I offered no resistance.  None at all.  In fact, I lent aid to endeavor, climbing into his lap and wrapping him up in my legs.  “Ah, fuck.  What you do to me…”

I keened as his oiled fingers once more massaged my entrance.  “Would that I--had the strength--to command,” I garbled, going limp under the ministrations.

“Say but the words, and I comply.”

“Ugh.  I--you--incoherent!” I gasped though my mirth.  Fuck but his attentions were glorious.

A sentiment that compounded when he slid deep and thrust slow and sure and fuck the gods -- I could do little more than hiss my pleasure and cling to his shoulders, neck, arms, back, hips and let him move against me, rub his hard belly over my aching cock until I realized that the soft whines assaulting my ears were coming from my own throat which he was kissing, nipping, sucking, licking, blowing hot breaths upon, and fuck how had he not released yet?  How had I not given in?  Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.

“Ag-ron!” I rasped, barely audible to my own ears.  “I burn…”

He groaned in agreement, but merely transferred his attentions to opposite side of neck, his hips rolling in practiced, maddening rhythm until time suspended somewhere beyond awareness and I could not recall anything beyond this, beyond having him and feeling him and wanting him again and again and again!

And then -- his hand guiding my arms around his shoulders and he paused, shifted, lifted, and fucking _****fuck!****_   I was riding his lap, impaled upon his cock as he braced knees wide, grasped my hips close, and surged into me -- the force enough to wreck me mindless with skin-blistering, heart-pounding, breath-taking pleasure and need and fuck just fucking _****fuck--!****_

I was dragged through explosions of release.  One after the other.  Heat and silence and immolating light!

And Agron’s roar muffled against my shoulder, edge of teeth pressing against sweaty skin and I held on.  His hips twitched, his entire body spasmed, and all I could do was maintain grip lest I fall into the abyss.

And then I _****was****_  falling, landing upon my back amid wrinkled bedclothes and Agron followed me down, panting thunderous breaths against my chest.

“Your skills… improve,” I managed to squeeze out past dry throat and over sticky tongue, “much.”

He giggled against my skin, mouthing slobbery kisses against whatever flesh he was able to reach absent removing forehead from my sternum.  “And do they please honored instructor?”

“Honored instructor?  Who might that be?”

His hand uncurled and fingers pinched my side.

I twitched, feeling a beaming grin overtake me.  “Say his name so that I might also thank this man.”

“Nasir…”

“Truly.  I’ll not spear him out of jealousy.”

“Nasir…!”

“How could a man hold to jealousy while reaping such benefits?”

“Nasir!”

“Hm?” I inquired as Agron lifted his head.  He silenced me with an ardent kiss before nuzzling at my jaw, ear, hair…

“You,” he mumbled, “seek full sum of compliments.”

“Do I?” I teased in the instant before Agron’s meaning hit.  My hands roved down to his chest and pressed.  He readily parted lips from my brow and arched away, balanced on elbows, hovering.  “Agron… how am I your…?”  I could not utter the words.  The very thought that such a man as he had not held dozens of lovers east of the Rhine was incredible.  Unbelievable.  Duro’s teasing so long ago -- just before taking the slaver wagon transporting Naevia -- had clearly been spoken in jest: _****“You were too exhausted from sparring with the boys you could have charmed if you had removed head from ass and heeded my methods!”****_

A jest.

Wasn’t it?

I gawped in silence.

Agron arched his brows in question.

The swallow I attempted clicked in my throat.  “I am not your first fuck,” I bluntly stated.

His lips curved upward into a warm smile.  “You and I do not fuck.”  Expression sobering, he told, “And in that manner, you are my only.”

By the gods.

I could not--just--how?  Licking dry lips, I rallied: “And you hold expectation that I would believe this… absent wine to wet tongue?”

He laughed a silent wheeze and gently withdrew from my embrace, crossing the room nude to retrieve his own cup from table.  It was yet half full and he offered all of it to me.

I insisted that we share what remained equally… and then we sought respite in slumber.  Agron succumbed to exhaustion and I escaped from whirling thoughts.

The following day was not nearly so joyous.

After the town granary was emptied onto arriving carts, I bore the bodies of those I had killed during the taking of Anxia across its threshold: two armored guards; three men, Roman by their features; and an old woman who had tripped and stumbled against my blade in the churning chaos of midnight battle.

Though I broke no words on the number, I kept tally.  The subject was not a source of pride for me as it was for many enthusiastic fighters, Duro included.  Yet I suspected my young brother only gave accounting of those he deemed deserving of death: Roman soldiers, domus guards, wealthy dominus and perfumed domina, fleshmongers such as slavers, lanistas, street pimps and brothel owners.

We fought Rome.  If these lands were our arena, then we could not only fault the editor for announcing penalty of death.  We would also hold the masses themselves accountable.

Agron and Duro likewise saw their kills out of sight, a custom that had taken shape in Eburi.  They no longer ordered the Germans -- nor I my Syrians -- to do the same; our countrymen swiftly followed suit.  As did Crixus and the Gauls.  Spartacus and the Brotherhood.  The Pompeii champion and his men.  I suspected it was an occasion for jest and braggadocio for most.  For me, it was duty.

I laid the elderly woman’s corpse down upon open space and turned to see Agron settling the body of a small boy upon empty shelf.  I placed a hand upon my lover’s arm and wondered if the boy had seen ten summers or eleven.  No more than twelve, certainly.

Agron’s jaw clenched, muscle bunching and molars grinding with frustration.

“I would help shoulder weight,” I offered.

“Gratitude,” he murmured, “but I shall manage.”

So stood his right.

The sound of a throat clearing drew our gaze to open doorway, where Duro quietly informed: “Spartacus calls a conference.”

From the balcony of Anxia’s grandest domus, which stood as our interim infirmary, I could chart not only the progress of bodies being removed from the streets, but the arrival of wagons laden with rebellion followers.  I hoped that my little Syrian monsters would not be forced to cast gaze upon the lifeless bodies of children their age.

“We next make for Metapontum,” Spartacus announced and I turned from view of gruesome work, crossing arms over chest.  “Gannicus tells it is a walled city in decline where many buildings stand vacant and suitable to accommodate our numbers.”

“I have also told of my friends there,” the Celt cut in, his tone hard-edged.  “And I would not have them fall to our swords.”

“Roman friends?” Duro huffed, disbelieving.  “A fucking contradiction if I ever heard one!”

Gannicus’ eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, shoulders tensed--

“Greek,” I spoke, drawing every gaze in my direction.  I looked from Gannicus to Duro, and then Agron, Spartacus, Mira, Crixus, Naevia, and Oenomaus.  Reluctantly, I elaborated, “Metapontum was built by Greeks… which is perhaps why its people chose to side with Carthage and Hannibal when his ships made land upon these shores.”

Oenomaus drew a deep breath.  “And now we know why the city falls into decline.”

Indeed.  In penalty for their treachery, the citizens of Metapontum would have been made to offer considerable tribute.  Generations later, the descendants of those who had not fled the area would still be reeling from the weight of heavy penalty.

Spartacus looked to the Celt.  “Would they support our cause then, and offer resistance against Rome?”

Gannicus’ head tilted to the side in doubt.  “My time there was spent with wine cup in hand.  I did not seek to burden myself with their cares.”

Crixus snorted.  “You do not burden shoulders with the weight of your own.”

“And which of us draws more breath for laughter?”

Naevia put a hand upon Crixus’ arm before he could retort.  “Nasir, how would you gain the trust of people who suffer these burdens?”

“Yes, we would hear your suggestion,” Mira quickly concurred.

Agron and Duro looked to me.

I licked my lips and drew breath.  “Should the people of the city be Greek in heart, they will express it beyond the reach of grasping Roman hands.”  I asked of Gannicus, “Stands there such a place where a man or woman might give voice to true thoughts or offer genuine prayers to the gods?”

He looked startled by my turn of thought.  “There… yes.  There stands a temple.  To Hera.  Some distance northeast of the city walls.  I have never paid it visit, but it is well regarded by the people.”

Spartacus nodded.  “Then let us stop there, and learn more.  I would not allow ill feelings in a place that we intend to call home for the winter months.”

A wise strategy.

We would require a second in order to successfully approach Metapontum’s temple of Hera.

To that end, I proposed: “I would enlist Euclid in this venture.  If he is agreeable.”

“A temple of Hera?” the one-armed cook grumbled, nose twitching in what might have been a sneer.  “What business would the old crone have with us?”

“The old crone?” Duro huffed.

Agron glared a warning.

The name did not surprise me, not given the many works I had read in my lifetime.  Greek authors had been prolific… and many of their works had also been favored by Varro’s father.  I spoke to Euclid: “Can you not think of at least one use she may have for us?”

“By what means would I hold any knowledge of her thoughts?”

“Greece is your homeland, is it not?  And Hera oversaw your birth.”

“If a Greek is all you require, seek another one.  I have duties to attend to.”  He pushed past me and began sorting through cabbages bound for his stew pots.

I stopped my sigh behind pressed lips.  “You hold no interest in gazing upon her likeness?”

“Would she in gazing upon mine?”

Duro suggested, “But with a bit of oil and application of comb, you might--”

“I might fucking poison you with loose bowels, pup!”

I held no doubt he could.  Still.  I was not ready to concede defeat.  “Did she not protect Alexander, blazing forth in chariot toward victory?”

“Out of boredom, perhaps.  She holds no love for Persians.  Despite that fucking bird she favors.”

The bird she-- ah, the Persian bird, the peacock, yes.  I recalled her chariot was said to be drawn by the very creatures.  A fact of academic interest.

“Does she hold any more love for Rome?” I pressed.  “Does she favor the people who steal her temples and tribute -- images and glory -- in the name of Juno?”

Euclid leveled a hostile stare upon me.  “You speak as pious Greek.  You go then and break words with temple priestess.”

In Greek, I replied, “I am no Greek, but there may be many trapped beneath Roman hand.  In Metapontum.”

A moment of silence rolled through inn’s kitchen.  In the act of reaching for cleaving knife, Euclid paused… as my brothers paused.  Duro frowned in confusion at my foreign words and Agron blinked, stunned and mesmerized.

Very quietly, Euclid rumbled, “Metapontum?”

“Yes.”  I asked in the tongue of his homeland: “Do you know it?”

“I fucking passed through it, out of hull and into slavery.”  And from the lines stacking upon careworn brow, he had witnessed unpleasant sights there.  “Many poor fucks never even set foot beyond city walls.”  He looked from me to my brothers and back again.  When he next spoke, his words were in common tongue: “You would liberate them?”

“We would cut off Roman hands and enable them to liberate themselves,” I answered.

He grunted once, scooping up the knife and placing its edge upon nearest cabbage.  “So be it.  I accompany you, Syrian, _****but--!”****_

I had opened my mouth to protest involvement in this quest -- by what logic did Euclid think the keeper of a Greek temple upon Roman soil would welcome me?

“Any success had will result from your fucking silver tongue.  I shall be Greek and silent.”  With that, he levered his right arm high and slammed knife down with force, dividing the cabbage into neat halves.

“Well,” Duro mused as we stepped outside into the seemingly endless clamor of Spartacus’ followers arriving in droves.  “That surely stands as guarantee of successful venture!  We shall make return by sundown!”

Agron flicked his ear before I could put forth the same effort.

I next sought conference with the Veteran.  Finding him balls deep in a giggling young woman, I altered course to welcome my Syrian charges through city gates and see them to the rambling villa used by our healers.  Simon would happily put their idle hands to use in mixing poultices during brief sojourn.

Hours later, I managed to track the Veteran to inn’s hall and favored seat beside wine barrel.  He grunted a greeting with brow quirked in question.

As he did not appear surprised by my approach, he’d undoubtedly noticed my near interruption earlier.

Sitting opposite him uninvited, I broke words: “Euclid and I are for Metapontum’s temple of Hera.  I hear tell you are Greek and I ask you to lend voice and sword to aid.”

“You waited half a day to make request?” he noted, unimpressed.

“The other option being interruption of current activities.”

“Interruption!  A gladiator’s cock hardens at thought of venture requiring use of sword.”

I smirked.  “You would rather the poor girl be heard begging for a moment’s respite rather than additional attentions?”

“At my age?  What would you favor?”

Hm.  He spoke valid point.

The Veteran gulped down the remaining wine in cup.  “When do we leave?”

“Dawn.  Meet us by the south gate.”

He nodded, dropped wine cup upon unwashed table top, and smirked.  “The girl should be recovered by now.”

I wished him a pleasant evening and shook my head in bemusement as he swaggered out the door and into the dusk.

As the room that I shared with Agron in the inn was yet vacant, I trotted through the narrow streets back to the villa to bid good night to the little monsters and explain my absence.  Oruros pouted.  Theleda embraced me so tightly at waist that I was required to tickle her in order to ease her grasp.  Emesa grabbed my hand and pulled me down to receive a kiss that would have been planted squarely upon my lips had I not turned cheek at the last moment.

“A quick learner that one,” Simon jested from threshold.  “A shame her efforts to claim you come too late.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Do you encourage this?”

“It is all Adal’s doing,” our interim healer quickly asserted, nodding me into the next room where he promptly sighed into the embrace of chair’s comfort.  Thelmenis followed in order to show me a weaving he’d made from colored twine and I praised his efforts judiciously.  Pleased, he raced off, calling to his friends.

Simon smirked.  “If those are the boys I saw carving earlier, you may wish you’d expressed less enthusiasm.”

I arched a brow in question, but instead queried, “How do you fare, friend?”

He shrugged.  “I stand.  I walk.  I bark instruction.  Three things I once believed lost to me.”

“As well received as they are, recent path makes any effort all the more tiresome.”  I confided, “Yet extended rest is within sight.”

“And I shall be fucking grateful for it.”

The pounding patter of bare feet upon tile alerted me to the next wave of supplicants.  Thelmenis now headed a small group bearing gifts.  I gaped at their offerings, my face heating as Demetrias proudly held three crudely carved and vividly painted wooden phalluses aloft and declared of each: “Nasir!  Agron!  Duro!”

“Er,” I said, floundering.

Simon snickered.  “I spoke warning.”

With a glare, I turned back to the boys and instructed them to string all three carvings upon the cord Thelmenis had made.  Simon shook his head at me as I knelt upon knee and held still so that the adornment could be tied around my neck.

“You would know, of course,” I rallied, speaking to Simon and the boys equally, “that phallic pendants are worn into battle for the sake of good fortune?”

“Worn by Roman men,” Simon corrected.

“One or the other.”

“Hm?”

“They stand as either Roman or men,” I explained with a smirk.  “Not both.”

Simon laughed.  “Had I one wish, it would be to see Agron’s face when he first gazes upon those.”

“It will be the face of envy.”  I reached up to proudly arrange the pendants in prominent display.  “For there could be no finer depiction of our cocks!”

My prediction was proved false, however, when Duro laid eyes upon my new adornment and, gaping, roughly shoved a disgruntled Agron around to face me.

My lover’s brows shot up.  “Um…”

“What--fucking--are those fucking--!”  At this point, Duro snorted so hard bits of snot shot out of his nose and he doubled over in laughter.

Before Agron’s look of amazement could fade, I informed: “I vowed to Simon that you would stand most jealous of the gifts my little monsters crafted.  In fact, each is named for one of us.  The longest is mine, naturally.  The widest in girth would be yours.  And we shall call the smallest ‘Duro.’”

Agron exploded with laughter, tears squeezing from his scrunched eyes as Duro sobered and, lurching closer for earnest inspection of the charms, he declared, “Fuck you both, I will not stand as -- you fuck!  They are all three equal in length and girth!”

“Yes,” I allowed, “but you yet remain our little brother.”

“Ugh.  See yourselves from fucking sight.  Should I cast gaze upon either of you before dawn tomorrow, it shall be too fucking soon!”

Agron wheezed, waving farewell to his brother’s departing back.

I permitted Duro to have the last word.  Just this once.

But the last laugh?  That I would gladly share with Agron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m no expert, but the meaning I Internet’ed for phallic pendants (fascinum) was that they were worn by Roman soldiers for protection in battle. Or, that was at least one reason why they were worn. I’m not sure that Nasir’s “little monsters” know this, but Nasir probably would (given the interest Varro’s father had in military accounts). I’m not sure if Agron and Duro know. I mean, in APMF, Agron and Duro arrive at the ludus pretty fluent in Latin. I still haven’t told you why that is, have I? (^_~)


	6. The Temple of Hera

There.

A large wooden structure rose up from seemingly endless, harvested fields.  Telltale columns and unforgiving angles set against the cloudy sky where land dropped away toward sea: the Temple of Hera had required nearly two full days of travel to reach.

“Your estimate said nothing of such fucking distance,” Duro complained, grimacing from the back of his horse.

“I gave warning of considerable discomfort.”  Glancing toward my lover, I noted his perpetual frown and unchanging, stoic silence.  “You have no horses east of the Rhine?” I jested.  “Or do you ride goats?”

Euclid’s head knocked back and he barked out a laugh.  His horse startled and shied, but the man maintained his seat easily with use of pelvis and knees.  The Veteran added a soft chortle to the one-armed cook’s mirth.  Salaminias alone did not understand the joke.  Before I could translate it into Greek, Euclid giddily undertook that task.

It had been a surprise, indeed, to learn that several of my Syrians spoke the language of Greece.  Salaminias among them.  His talent with horses guaranteed him inclusion in our venture should he desire it.

He had.

And of course, wherever I must go, so too must my German brothers.  Still--

The Veteran muttered, “Goat and cart, isn’t it?”

“Indeed, you sea-salted shit,” Duro snarled absent any of the respect a seasoned gladiator of the Veteran’s years was owed.  “And the cart is made from turnips so as to see our bellies filled!”

“Gods forbid you eat the goats,” I mumbled through a helpless smile.

“Eat the goats,” the Veteran agreed jovially -- I had never known the man to be so loquacious -- “and fuck themselves in ass with turnips.”

“Is it any wonder Romans are yet so confounded by German ways?” Euclid brayed.

I ached-burned-swelled with temptation to build upon the jest, but a muscle at the corner of Agron’s right eye was twitching -- his knuckles white, fists clenched, back ramrod straight and lips clamped in a fearsome moue.  Agron might hold me as his heart, but that alone would not offer sufficient persuasion in holding back the night’s chill should the temple custodians turn us away.

“Hush,” I bid the overly-happy Greeks.  “We approach sacred ground.  Profanity will see us refused hospitality.”

Euclid glanced back over his shoulder at me, brow arched.  “Says he to four former gladiators.”

“Former,” I repeated pointedly.  “Mind your place, _****pilgrim.”****_

He harrumphed and faced forward once more, nudging his steed into a showy, sidelong trot.  A maneuver I doubted the horse had even realized it could perform until this moment.  On my left, Duro’s chest expanded as visibly as a frog’s throat.

“Duro…” I pleaded.  We were nearly there.  The temple sat just ahead, easily visible this side of open plain’s horizon.

Agron added an inarticulate grunt to my objection and Duro deflated.  “I fucking hate horses,” he groused.

“Imagine roasting the one that shoulders your weight,” I suggested.  “And perhaps it will allow for a marginally more bearable journey.”

“Hm.  So I shall!”

Agron snorted and scanned the landscape, jaw locked tightly shut.  From the stiff stride of his mount, I was well aware of my lover’s sore body.  He had been ill at ease upon climbing into saddle this morning and his mood had only soured since.  Not even my earlier teasing had earned remark, and I was growing concerned for his obvious suffering.

Not that he was the only one enduring aches of body.  I enjoyed our method of travel no more than Duro, but the Veteran and Salaminias rode as if their balls were somehow not mashed against hard leather seat.  Or as if they possessed no balls at all.  And Euclid -- well, he’d once fought upon horseback in Rome’s Circus Maximus.  It was little wonder he required no aid in either seeing himself astride or remaining there.

“The only Greek who requires aid upon horseback is one with no arms at all!” he’d boasted and, thus far, what I had seen of our companions’ skill only proved the claim true.

“Letters and numbers.  Oration.  Literature.  Military history.  Philosophy.   _ ** **Greek.”****  _ Duro glanced at me with increasing humor as we neared our objective.  “Are there any other subjects you stand skilled in, little brother?”

My lips quirked.  “I can divine the color of your ass as well.”

“Fuck!” Duro barked up at the sky, earning glares from the Greeks ahead of us and a smirk from Agron.  “Even I could divine that.  And as I cannot set eyes upon my own ass, it would be a genuine feat!”

“Worthy of the arena.”

“I stand the champion of chapped ass.”

Agron snorted a chuckle.

“Currently,” I amended, “you do not stand all.”

“Nor will I until balls have dropped once more.”

“Oh?  Had they done so?” Agron teased his younger brother, at long last breaking words.  “I took no notice.”

Duro pointed a finger past my face at Agron’s false expression of childlike ignorance, shifting his weight and causing mount to sidestep toward edge of road.  “Fucking gods and shit-for-brains horse!” he grumbled, fumbling for the reins and struggling to straighten out the animal’s gait.

“Hush your blasphemy!” Agron mocked.

I bit my lip, choking on laughter.

“Blasphe--hush _****my****_  blasphemy, you godless fuck?  You shall know regret as I ‘blaspheme’ your hide to far shore!”

“Er… not so far,” I pointed out, leaning forward and squinting as if I could make out the roiling tide and breaking waves.

Duro rolled his eyes.  “Of course the two of you join forces to torment me--”

“Absent fucking, how else are Nasir and I to pass the time?”

I bowed my head in defeat.  With a slow shake, I informed Agron: “I do not think you will welcome additional riding for a while yet.”

As Duro giggled, brows twitching and eyes twinkling, Agron shifted upon saddle and, wincing, admitted, “For you, I would make allowance.”

“Fuck,” Duro breathed in jovial amazement.  “Nasir, you know not the devotion such a promise contains.”

“A subject I would gladly explore.”

But first, our duties must be discharged.  Up ahead, rural path between fields joined with the thoroughfare from Metapontum.  Our traveling companions had already turned their mounts onto it and toward Hera’s temple, oblivious to the pair of figures who plodded toward the unmarked crossroads: a man and woman venturing toward our destination.

“Greetings!” I called out, pausing my horse and allowing Euclid, Salaminias, and the Veteran to draw further ahead.

The pedestrians startled, looking up and halting their steps.  It was then that I noticed the way the man’s arms curled around the woman and hers cradled a belly heavy with child.  I put out a hand to waylay Duro’s horse.  Agron sighed with relief at the temporary respite.

“Your path leads to Hera’s temple, yes?” I inquired gently.  “As does ours.  We happily offer a horse to see you there if you would ride?”

Agron was already sliding down from his perch and holding out the reins, hopeful for an excuse to be done with the animal for the day.

“I, er,” the man stuttered, taken aback by our generosity.  “For what purpose do you seek Hera’s favor?”

I nodded toward Duro.  “My friend is soon to marry.”

The man squinted at Duro.  “Your intended does not accompany?”

“Eh, she is not Greek,” Duro answered with a sheepish grin.  “But I am the younger son and her father would welcome me under his roof.”

“A good match,” Agron approved, yet extending invitation for the woman to utilize his horse.

The couple reached us and the man accepted the reins.  “Our thanks.”

It wasn’t until Agron stiffened and Duro’s horse shifted restlessly that I realized the man had spoken Greek.

“Ah, think nothing of it,” I said, surprising him and then grinned ruefully.  “Now you understand why I accompany.”

“You act as translator?”

I nodded.  “I do.”

“Odd -- for Greek men to be denied mother tongue.”

“Rome denies much,” I daringly replied, bracing myself for censure.

My show of unease bolstered his courage.  “It does,” he agreed and the woman nudged him.

“Pleuratos, assist me before I fall.”

“Apologies, sister.”

I nodded to Agron and he moved to hold the saddle steady as Pleuratos boosted her up and astride.  Hand upon bridle, Agron nudged the horse forward.

Duro, not about to let the opportunity to feel terra firma beneath heel and sole, also swung down and introduced himself to Pleuratos.  “A difficult journey--” he smiled up at the pregnant woman who was concentrating on relaxing into the horse’s stride.  “Absent cart.”

Pleuratos answered: “The women of our family have often experienced difficult births.  With Hera’s assistance, perhaps my sister will not suffer overmuch.”

She huffed a laugh.  “Overmuch.  Yes.”  Her wince spoke of pain nonetheless.

“Shall I slow the horse?” Agron accommodatingly inquired.

“No, pace is satisfactory,” she insisted.

Pleuratos rolled his eyes.  “Stubborn mule.”

“Stupid ass,” she distractedly returned.

“Your sister?” Duro astutely guessed.

I left Duro to charm the young man.  My German brother was as well-versed in the queries to which we sought answers as I was.  I merely listened in the event that Duro asked about a rite that, as a purported Greek, he ought to have some knowledge of.  Unless I could intercede, our counterfeit would be noted.

“Your first child?”

I blinked, surprised that Agron posed the question with genuine interest.

“Yes,” the young woman replied, a faint smile teasing her lips before another grimace twisted her expression.  “I pray it will not be my last.  Have you any children?”

“No.  Our sister has a daughter.”

“How old?”

“It has been some time since… perhaps she has seen sixteen summers now?”

“Your sister must live a fair distance.”

“With her honored husband, yes.”

“Well, you make the journey to Hera’s temple for the sake of your brother’s coming marriage.  Perhaps next year will see you to your sister’s hearth.”

Agron’s head tipped in agreement.

We arrived at the temple having gained a plethora of details on life within Metapontum.  Agron made to lead the horse up to foot of temple steps, no doubt thinking to shorten the young woman’s journey, but she requested to be lowered to ground in the yard.  We complied.

One of the temple acolytes appeared -- seemingly out of thin air -- to assist Pleuratos’ sister, whose name I had not learned.

“Have you a means to return to the city?” I asked the young Greek as I dismounted, relinquishing elevated view of terrain.

He nodded.  “My brother-in-law brings his master’s cart once the day’s work is done.”

I frowned.  “Your brother-in-law is not a free man?”

“No Greek of Metapontum is, though many of us bear no collar.”

“Do you at least receive grain and lodging from kind hands?”

He shook his head on a sigh.  “Count your blessings, friend, that you do not owe rent to a Roman of these lands.”

Forcing jaw to unclench, I prayed, “May their unmerciful ways be one day repaid in kind.”

“If the gods yet care,” he agreed, bid us good day, and we parted ways.

I gathered the reins for all three exhausted horses and gestured for my brothers to take rest upon temple steps.  Duro eagerly complied with a long, obscene groan.  Agron hesitated until I punched his shoulder insistently.  He relented with a rueful smile and I led our mounts around to the stables where Salaminias was drawing water.

In Greek, the young man offered, “I would see to these as well.  Euclid asks for you.”

“I know little of practices at Greek temples.”

“But your Greek is better, I think.”  The young man grinned, startling a laugh out of me.

“Very well.  I now rush to their aid.”

No small amount of which was required to soothe the ruffled feathers of the acolyte who clearly regretted being the one to greet both the Veteran and Euclid.  “My friends are brash,” I apologized, “and life among the crass, Roman masses has robbed them of much.  Your tolerance is a gift we shall make effort to repay.”

The acolyte smiled with pleasure as I bowed deeply.  Wooden pendants clanked softly beneath my hood and scarf.

“You wear an idol?” she inquired.

Fuck.  The fascinum was not an adornment worn by those devoted to the Wife and Mother.  “Ah, no,” I quickly answered.  “Charms -- crafted by well-meaning sons -- but trinkets that I fear Hera would not welcome in her house.”

She hummed, amused.  “And out of respect for stern wife, you dare not remove them from neck.”

I shrugged.

The Veteran huffed a laugh and Euclid, smirking broadly, shook his head.  Thankfully, they kept their thoughts behind their fucking teeth.

The acolyte offered to introduce us to the priestess, but I insisted Pleuratos’ sister be seen first.  “We have come a fair distance and are happy to rest for a time.”

So we did.  Euclid occupied himself by rubbing down the horses alongside Salaminias.  I relaxed upon the steps with Agron and Duro as the Veteran dozed irreverently against wooden pillar.  The sun slid into early evening before we heard the clatter of a cart upon the road, glimpsed the weary mare that pulled it and the task-worn man at her reins.

“Pleuratos?” cart’s driver asked of the acolyte that had greeted us.  He was quickly joined by his wife’s brother.  “How fares Phoebe?  I told her the temple is too far!  Does Hera make her pain worthwhile at least?”

“Calm yourself, brother.  New friends lent aid for half of the journey.”  At this Pleuratos nodded our way and explained the offer of saddle and guided mount.

When I smiled in benign greeting, Phoebe’s husband rushed over to grasp my hand, and then Duro’s, and finally Agron’s before any of us could push ourselves upright.  “Oh, thanks.  Many thanks, brothers!  May Hera bless you!”

I grinned as I accepted his passionate gratitude.  The favor we had provided stood such a small kindness and yet he behaved as though we had conveyed his wife upon a soft liter made of clouds.  What ill treatment must a man first endure in order to view our meager intervention with such relief?

Did all Greeks of Metapontum suffer so?  Pleuratos’ earlier words indicated that they did.  Why did the Wife and Mother permit it?

Hera, I suddenly realized with a visceral shock, stood the fiercest goddess of the Greeks.  Though many other goddesses -- Athena among them -- prided themselves on skill in warfare, there were none so frighteningly vengeful as Hera.  And as vengeance stood paramount to Spartacus’ cause, perhaps she would be moved by our plight, pleased by our courage, and offer aid to our venture.

The priestess, a slender woman of middle years and strong carriage, came forth with Phoebe upon her arm and kindly saw Hera’s petitioner off toward Metapontum.  She watched their progress in the blushing glow of the dying day.  Though Duro fidgeted and Euclid gaped at her, I made no attempt to address her absent invitation.

When at last she deemed that we had proved both our persistence and good manners, she cast her gaze away from the road and upon our group.  “Present yourselves with grace and find welcome at the House of Hera, travelers.”

Our introductions were made and gifts of humble tribute placed into the hands of the acolytes before I observed of Phoebe and her family: “Kind and good people find solace here.”

“There stand many of their like upon this plain.”

I surveyed it.  “A fertile, open landscape.  A true home for the Wife and Mother.”

“Indeed.”  Hera’s prophetess examined us with shrewd, dark eyes, and when she next spoke, her voice was firm: “What do Greeks, Germans, and Syrians seek of my mistress?”

Syrians and Greeks stood before her, yes.  Clearly.  But how had she known Germans were present?  To my knowledge, neither Agron nor Duro possessed typical Germanic names.  Illyrian and Roman, respectively… were they not?

I was fairly certain they were and I was humbled by the priestess’ show of skill.  A prophetess, indeed.

I answered her challenge on a breath thinned by awe: “We seek Hera’s blessing.”

This intrigued her; the subtle quirk of a brow in the fading light.  “What venture of yours could possibly fall under the province of Hera?”

I dared not lie.  “Vengeance.”

“An uncommon request.”

“Ours is an uncommon venture.”  I looked toward distant city and the diminishing figures upon the road.  “One we hope will benefit all Greeks who struggle beneath heavy burden and overbearing shadow.”

She studied each of us in turn before her gaze fell once more upon me.  I felt my heart weighed, my thoughts read, my spirit judged.

“You,” she spoke suddenly to Euclid.  “Come within.”  As the two acolytes ushered the man up the steps, he glanced back at us in question.  In my ignorance, could offer no reassurance.  If neither Euclid nor the Veteran could anticipate what the evening would require, then… I could only hope for favorable outcome.

“The five of you may take rest in the stables.  Seek your comrade at dawn.”

“As you decree,” I answered formally and gestured my brothers off of temple’s portico.

“What does she do with Euclid?” Duro demanded once we reached stable yard.

I looked to the Veteran, who shrugged.  “In the old crone’s house?  A man cannot say.”

Duro rolled his eyes.  “We waste time.  What can a goddess of the Greeks offer--”

The Veteran kicked Duro’s feet out from under him and Duro tumbled to the dust with a squawk.  Agron took a menacing step forward to block the Veteran’s advance, but was shouldered aside.

Arms akimbo, the old gladiator growled, “You will show respect, pup!  For should Hera favor our endeavors, we shall stand victorious.”

Yet ignoring my lover’s glower, he reached a hand out and, after a moment’s doubting hesitation, Duro grasped it, permitting the Veteran to aid him in regaining feet.  “She is so terrible -- Hera?”

“She is the queen of all Olympians, and it is her will that results in reckoning storms following Zeus’ blustering thunder.”  The Veteran looked at me and approved with a half-smile, “Your words voice my respects well.  Little man.”

I glared at him.  “You will answer for that when we are away from this place.”

He chuckled.

That night, I curled against Agron’s back upon cushioning hay and spread cloth… and I dreamed.  What visions sprawled vividly before me in slumber barely whispered like mist upon my waking, but I felt a confidence that I had not realized absent from my heart.  I had dreamed of Spartacus and the liberation of those yoked by Rome and… yes.  I knew not by what means or when, but yes.  The answer to our petition was _****yes.****_

As directed, we awaited Euclid’s emergence from Hera’s domain at dawn.  He descended the steps with purpose, a mighty frown barring his thoughts from us.

The priestess followed in his wake, watching as he reached for his horse and mounted.  The rest of us reluctantly did likewise, unsettled by the ominous silence.

Euclid did not thank her.  Rather, he met her gaze directly and without fear.

“The red serpent,” she said in the common tongue.

He nodded, nudging his horse toward the road.  “I will not forget.”

“What won’t you forget?” Duro asked a tense duration later, keeping his voice down despite the distance we had put between us and the Temple of Hera.  “What red serpent?”

“Words meant for Spartacus.”  Euclid looked to me suddenly and I nearly jumped out of my skin.  “Do we move to Metapontum?”

“Why do you ask Nasir?” Duro demanded, irritated at being denied satisfactory explanations.

“Because Hera refused to speak to me of it, but there stands one among our Brotherhood who both shares hearth with another and sees to the needs of children.”

The flesh upon my arms prickled.  I could feel Agron’s gaze burning my skin.

Euclid pressed, “Nasir?  Did you dream?”

I nodded.

“And do we move to Metapontum?”

I nodded a second time, jaw clenched and teeth bared.  “Yes,” I told with fierce confidence.  “Yes, we do.”

“We shall see it so,” Spartacus concurred upon our return to Anxia.  “But I would speak privately with Euclid before furthering preparations.”

I was glad to be dismissed so quickly after giving report.  Fuck, but it had been an exhausting four days of travel.  The last two most especially: the sidelong glances I had felt from Agron and the numerous times Duro had opened mouth and drawn breath only to shut his lips tight absent breaking words had chafed unpleasantly.

Now, he looked between me and Agron before reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck, gaze skimming over the rafters in the corridor where we idled.  Perhaps looking for spiders.  “I shall, uh, leave you to your rest then.”

I watched him meander down the hall, bang on a door, and upon receiving no reply, shoulder his way over the threshold.  It slammed shut before I could hear him flop bonelessly down upon musty bed.

Without a word, Agron led the way into what had been our room until four days past.  I paused just inside and closed it as Agron continued on toward the window, propping the shutter open to let in the last bit of sunlight.

“Have you a wife?” I blurted.

Agron stiffened and turned.  Blinked at me with disbelieving eyes.

I forced myself to further detail the query: “Or a woman who waits for you east of the Rhine?”

He sputtered a laugh.  “By the fucking gods, were I not so utterly spent from travel, I would take exception.”

“What exception is there to take?”  My arms swept wide before flopping down at my sides.  “You never speak of your family beyond Duro.”

“You,” he accused, “have never asked.”

Taken aback by his defensive volley, I informed: “Because I do not wish to cause you pain!”

“Nasir…”

I turned back toward the door.  Perhaps I would look in on my Syrians before taking rest.  I was certain I would find no peace here.  I fumbled with the lock on the door.  Opened it--

Agron’s hand splayed upon the wood, pressing it back into frame.  “Pause a moment.”

Glaring at his fingers, I retorted, “Have I choice in the matter?”

Slowly, he withdrew though he did not step away.  “I have no wife.  No children.  Nor shall I ever.”

I turned, frowning in confusion.

Agron considered our dusty forms before looking up and into my eyes.  “I would share hearth with you.”

My chin tilted aside in reluctance to accept his words.  “Your place is at your brother’s side.”

“Then I am blessed -- though by which gods or for what reason I know not -- that my lover also calls Duro brother.”  Agron’s brows tilted in question.

“You have heard me say so,” I confirmed, surprised that he held any doubt on the matter, “on many occasions.  And though I lack practice in acting as such, I am sincere.”

Agron released the breath he’d been holding, his shoulders slumping with relief.

Rubbing at creased brow, I sighed: “Euclid’s words on hearth and children -- do I imagine they stand as source of disquiet?”  When he merely shook his head in helpless frustration, I pressed, “Or does Duro stand better able to advise Spartacus on our venture to Metapontum?”

Agron sputtered.  “Duro?  A wife and children?”  He chuckled weakly.  “He is yet a boy himself!”

“Then speak plainly!” I hissed.

He huffed, mouth tightening and hands fisting.

I waited.

“I have not offered you any vows of loyalty!” he snapped.  “Vows which you are fucking owed, and I would give!”

“But are not required.”

He startled, shocked by my calm tone.

“I trust your loyalty is as true to me as it is to Duro.”

He nodded, his gaze seeking something in mine.  “You are my heart.”

“Then speak not of vows.”  With a quick puff of laughter, I asked, “What vows does a man owe his own heart?”

Agron’s mouth curved in a burgeoning smile.  “I would treat you well,” he proposed, playing along, “and hold you close.  Trust you with my life.”

I reached for his cheeks, rubbing callused hands over ever-present stubble.  “And as your heart, I would lengthen life, quicken blood, and remain with you always.”

Expression growing somber, he reminded us both: “I have only ever asked that you return to my arms.”

“I hold no desire to leave them.”

He inhaled sharply, eyes shimmering with tears.  When he shuffled close, I held ground and titled my chin up as his brow met mine.  Each of us leaning hard into the other.  We were both well beyond exhausted.

“Come.  Let us rest,” I urged, hands gliding past cheek and over jaw, along neck and across shoulders, and then down each arm to grasp and tug upon elbows.

“I yet owe you a vow,” he stubbornly insisted.

“No,” I refused, bumping blindly into the side of the bed.  “Not until our fight is done.”

He still wished to argue; his teeth flashed as he bit lower lip.  His brow crinkled.

“Humor an old man,” I teased, collapsing with comedic flair upon the stale bedding.

With a soft laugh, Agron crouched and began unfastening my footwear.  “How many summers have you seen?”

“One more than you.”  I yawned.

His eyes sparkled with mirth and sunset.  I reached out to trace his brows and marveled when he nuzzled into my palm.

“I do have a sister,” he suddenly volunteered.  “Rikke -- elder by fifteen summers.  My niece is called Linde.”

I hissed, exhaling through a wide smile.  But as joyful as I felt to receive this show of trust, perhaps Agron stood even more so at having bestowed it.  Of our respective grins, his was by far the brighter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve come across conflicting accounts: Germans were excellent at fighting from horseback AND Germans mainly fought infantry-style with spears. In this AU, Agron and Duro did not spend significant amounts of time on horseback back home east of the Rhine.
> 
> I was unable to find anything specific on this particular Temple of Hera, but it is a real place and there are ruins (now called “Tavole Palatine”). The Greek goddess Hera had quite a large following. Marriage and childbirth were two of her many provinces. (There also appears to be at least one other temple devoted to Hera located south of Vesuvius along the coast of Italy.)
> 
> Any names I used for Agron’s family will (regretfully) be taken from Old High German sources (which are from something like 700-900 AD) so they are NOT period names. I wish I could use the map method that I used for naming the Syrians, but any place names near Agron’s homeland around this time period either have Roman names or names without much variation, so I’ve decided that “Agron” and “Duro” are not representative of typical names east of the Rhine. (More on why this is LATER!)
> 
> Horseback riding while pregnant (especially during the second and third trimesters) is not generally recommended. FYI.
> 
> Oh, and YES -- there is something Very Important that Agron is not telling Nasir. Something he CANNOT tell Nasir. Yet. Enjoying the suspense? (^_~)


	7. Metapontum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: (a bit of) GORE, (a fair amount of) DEATH, (a whole $#&! load of) BAD LANGUAGE (of course)

Gulls.

I could hear their distant cries here at Metapontum’s main gate where we were ordered to state our business and surrender weapons.

“Our business?” Duro barked from driver’s seat, huffing through lips twisted with sarcasm.  “Use your fucking eyes!”

I thrust pointed finger toward him, coiled whip in my grasp.  “Close fucking mouth,” I snarled before turning back to the guards posted.  “Apologies,” I obsequiously drawled through a leer.  “The man forgets he is under my employ and not vice versa.  We make for the harbor.  Our shipment--” I waved an arm at the three tarp-covered slave wagons lined up upon the road at my back. “--is overdue in Damascus.”

One soldier scanned our caravan, noting Agron at the reins of the second wagon and Rabanus seated upon driver’s seat of the third.  “Inspection of goods is mandatory.”

I waved the shits forward, inviting them to perform their duties.  “Yes, yes.  By all fucking means, gaze to your heart’s content!  The more time wasted at this fucking gate, the more coin those fucking Cilicians demand to make haste.”

“It stands no fault of ours that your schedule is delayed.”

“Does it not?” I groused daringly, seeking to keep their attention divided.  “Is your kind not charged with keeping the roads clear of bandits and escaped fucking gladiators -- you know of whom I fucking speak!”

The guards exchanged dour looks as the one performing inspection flipped aside the tarp at first cart’s rear.  “You were harassed upon the Popilia?”

“Of course not!  I lost four guards upon this pig track from Potentia!”

Again, the soldiers paused and shared frowns.

I snorted.  “You were not aware the Thracian shit stands upon doorstep?”

“Be silent, slaver,” growled the guard who yet manned the gate.  “Or path to Metapontum’s harbor will be cleared at cost of tongue!”

Duro laughed.  “Fuck!  Had I coin, I would pay to witness it.”

Whirling around, I hissed, “And how would you hold coin after I chop off your hands, you ignorant fucking cunt?”

The second cart was opened with a flourish, wood creaking as tightly packed bodies cringed away from the sunlight.

“You transport whores?” the inspector assumed.

I confirmed.  “Yes, yes.  To brothels across the sea seeking more exotic offerings.  In the final cart, you will find men bound for flea-infested arenas.”

He marched toward the third wagon.

I confided to the remaining soldier just loud enough for his companion to overhear, “In truth, most ships have sailed past Neapolis -- due to recent events, you see.  The only meat left to be thrown to the jackals in Damascus is hardly fresh.”

Tarp thrown open, the soldier grimaced.  “You speak fucking truth, fleshmonger.  These appear half-rotten.”

“The half that yet remains of use still fetches a price.”

“I shall take your word on that, but would advise you to seek other avenues of business.  The crowds of even provincial arenas would riot upon sight of these miserable fucks.”

I shrugged.  “I have sold worse.”

“And if you claim the same customer gladly sought to do business with you thereafter, I will know you stand a lying sack of shit,” the inspector spat, returning to his post.  He barked a price for our passage.  I paid it.  We relinquished blades.  The wagons rattled through the opening of Metapontum’s city walls.

Its dusty streets put me in mind of Capua, but there all similarities ended.  Collared men and women kept the roads clear, ducking from one vacant structure to another, clinging to shadows and recessed doorways so as to avoid drawing attention that might waylay them.

Those without collar moved with threadbare robes draped over hunched shoulders, head bowed beneath hood and scarf.  Sidelong glances snagged upon our caravan.  Despite the bright sunlight a chill settled in the lane.  How many slave wagons had these people witnessed passing through their streets?  How close was each uncollared man and woman to the same fate?

No, I could find no fault in either their icy fury or abject fear.

The harbor hosted two vessels.  The first was a large fishing ship recently returned from sea; the sailors bent shoulders and back to task of scraping deck clear of guts to be used as chum for their next venture.  The other ship was manned by burly pirates whose arms and necks boasted both the dark ink of tattoos and polished shine of plunder.  The wind shifted and the reek of human filth confirmed it: this hull hauled slaves.

“Ah!” crowed a grinning, filthy beast of a man from ship’s deck.  He leaned his beefy arms upon the railing and leered.  “Here approaches the cause of our delay!”

And when Spartacus’ forces had intercepted these wagons upon the road, liberated its slaves, and interrogated its slavers, that delay had been lengthened.  Agron and Duro had been impressively effective at respectively intimidating and coaxing information from caravan’s leader.  That information I would now put to use with regards to handling this supposed business associate.  The man obviously anticipated compensation for the inconvenience of delay, and was busily imagining the heavy weight of coin in hand.

In vain.

My lips curled in answer to the pirate’s vicious smile, and I forced the sneer into something approachable.  “I stand equally eager to see business done.”

He gestured his two companions toward us.  No sooner had the soles of their feet smacked against the damp wharf, than I lifted hand -- yet grasping coiled whip -- and bid them pause with a sharp demand: “But first, we agree upon cost, Cilician.”

His smile flopped into a scowl.  “You’ll pay our fee, or your wares can rot here, slaver.”

“Well.  Perhaps we’ll seek refreshment as we wait for another crew.  But ah… we slavers tend to gossip after a few cups,” I pointed out.  “What a shame it would be to find yourselves absent steady work.  Raiding Roman ships is… tiresome, I hear.”

Had I stood closer, perhaps I would have heard his molars grind together.

He named a price.

I laughed in his face.

We haggled.

I pushed until we reached an impasse.

Pirates, fishermen, and harbor workers alike watched our back-and-forth as though we provided sport for spectators.  Suddenly, one of the Cilician’s shipmates butted in: “You waste time!  I would finish my duties before captain’s return--”

I guffawed loudly enough to do Duro proud.  My German brother silently approved with a cheeky grin that was completely genuine despite present company.

The shipmate’s revelation prompted from the brute yet aboard the sourest fucking frown I had ever laid eyes on.

“Gratitude, friend,” I singsonged, “for making excellent point: we waste time.  Let us fetch **_**_the captain_**_** \--”  Who this opportunistic fuck clearly was not.  “--and reach an accord.”

Ah, the anticipated weight of additional coin was even now disappearing from the seashit’s grasp.  He’d hoped to pocket a portion of the profit unbeknownst to ship’s true commander.  I stood truly grateful that I would not be spending any time aboard rancid fucking ship in the presence of this conniving fuck’s clear displeasure.

He growled, “Captain attends to errands.”

“Errands!  Ha!  He sees to business and acquires additional profit.”  I delivered a droll look.  “Profit made possible by late arrival of goods.  Tell me -- what prevents me from seeking a percentage of those gains?”

The third pirate, who had until this moment not spoken, now snarled, “Cockless little fuck!”

I snarled back, “The measure of my cock would split you in two!”

I did not imagine Agron’s cough of amusement.

The creature yet aboard snapped, pointing menacing finger in accusation: “I made no mention of profitable errand.”

I blithely retorted, “Should your captain seek anything other than profit while leaving you to hard labors, then he is a fool!  You must take me for one!”

“Well said.  And you speak truth -- we do not suffer fools such as you!”  He launched himself over ship’s railing to join his men.

I bristled.  Duro and Agron moved to my side, cudgels in hand.

Concealed, Cilician blades were unsheathed.

It was a dangerous role, indeed, the one for which I had volunteered my brothers and myself.  I held the lives of many close friends within my grasp as they heeded every word.  Within the first cart, Lysandros, Tilius, Vitus, Salaminias, and many others played the part of pitiful, shackled young men.  Concealed in the second, Mira and her team of female archers huddled together, concealing presence of bows and arrows.  As I generated distraction and spectacle, those bearing the mark of the Brotherhood silently unlaced tarp of the third cart and prepared to launch themselves toward nearest shadowed alley.

Had Spartacus’ legend not swelled so fantastically, a hundred of our number might have gained entry to the city with ease over the course of days.  But unless traveler’s business was both stated and shown true, the city’s suspicious guards turned all away.  So our friend Pleuratos had confided to Duro in irritation and ignorance… and so appeared to be the case.

Thus, here we now stood with the sea before us and walled Greek city at our backs.  I prayed Gannicus’ memory -- despite the days of drunken fucking he’d enjoyed here years ago -- was truly as clear and reliable as he claimed.

The Celt had told of a house near harbor side where a friend who would be sympathetic to our cause resided.  With this man’s guidance, the soldiers’ stations would be swiftly located and the Romans within sent to the Ferryman.  And once those with swords were relieved of them and city gates stood at our command, we would see to the Roman masters themselves.

But first, I stood charged with ensuring every onlooker’s gaze focused upon our altercation.

At this point, they undoubtedly were.

“You think us weary after days of travel, Cilicians?” I goaded, projecting voice loudly.  Loud enough to cover the sounds of footsteps racing the short but critical distance toward sheltering nook and alley?  I could either hope in ignorance or overreach in effort.  “Such trials merely shorten temper and build our fury.  Come and test our resolve!”

My shout echoed around the harbor and then settled into thick silence at which the waves gently lapped.

“What’s this ruckus?” a cultured voice drawled with amusement.

Trusting Agron and Duro to keep eyes upon opponents, I pivoted toward the newcomer.  A silk-garbed Roman man strolled from the far street, smiling at the scene we presented.

“Business formalities,” I dismissed with a charming smile.

My gaze skimmed over the man at forefront to count the pair of guards who accompanied him… as well as the additional two guards who stood at beck-and-call of a second wealthy Roman man.  In his wake trailed two slender slaves, a man of short-cropped hair and middle years as well as a lovely young woman possessing soft, dark tresses.

Eight witnesses who now stood with a clear view of the space between the carts and the safety of Metapotum’s maze of narrow streets.

Fuck.

“I did not realize fleshmongers were so vocal,” the second Roman remarked, “absent market’s stage beneath feet.”

I chuckled.  “We have a gift for it, sir.”

“And what of your wares?” he pressed.  “Are you as gifted in their quality?”

Thrusting chin forward, I crowed: “I pride myself on it.”

The first Roman grinned.  “Then let us view them!”  Turning to his companion, he spoke: “Did I not promise to entertain you with all Metapontum has to offer, good Laurus?”

“So you did.  And as I yet consider presented business opportunities, you yet lick ass.”

The first Roman laughed, seemingly taking no offense.  But due to the training my ears had received in the service of Marius, I knew otherwise.  From the cruel twist of Laurus’ mouth, he did as well -- he merely enjoyed poking fun at the man who sought use of his assets.

Facing me, Laurus explained: “I seek to replace a man recently fallen from my service.”

“A regrettable occurrence,” I lamented with a show of false sincerity.  “What manner of man do you require?”

Agron shifted.  Mumbled: “Our schedule…”

I waved his misgivings aside.  My mind was racing -- if I could not see these Roman shits from the dock, then so be it: they would be the first to fall to our swords.  Our best hope lay in these men finding no satisfaction with my offerings and departing harbor, allowing our plans to move forward absent further disruption.

I lectured Agron: “It is well worth the loss of one to see an esteemed customer satisfied.”  I ignored the sneering, snarling Cilicians and bid customer to confide in me: “Come, sir, do you prefer a man for fucking or fieldwork?”

“Why not both?”

“Indeed!”  With a rap upon the frame of the first wagon, I commanded, “See the boys from cart.”

As Leviticus, costumed in the garb of a guard, complied with the order, Rabanus descended from driver’s seat of the third wagon, eyeing the first Roman who was wandering close to the cart holding Mira and the other female archers.

I called out a warning: “I regret that neither men nor women have been prepared for proper viewing.”

“I am welcome to look, am I not?” the distant Roman demanded.

“Yes, you and both your guards.  Free of charge!” I invited.  “Words you shall likely never hear in the brothel where those cunts are bound.”

He laughed.

The eleven young men were now lined up beside wagon, their weapons and clean cloaks left crammed under the cart’s benches.  With the tarp closed, it was unlikely that anyone would spot the items.  I prayed for the wind not to stir.

“Hm,” Laurus mused, examining each young man presented.  “A far better selection than this morning’s pathetic lot.”  These words as well as a sadistic grin he aimed toward his host.  “My expectations had been raised far higher.”

The unnamed Roman forced his shoulders to relax.  He spun around and smiled winningly.  “Had I known you tire of Greeks, I would have made additional inquiries.”

“It is fortunate we cross paths with our Nubian friend.”

I realized Laurus spoke of me, but I did not correct him.  When his gaze flicked in my direction, I received a victorious smirk: the fuck knew I was no Nubian.  He was merely testing the lengths to which I would suffer his arrogance.

So be it.

But Laurus’ friend was not without claws of his own: “I do hope you manage to replace your man before you make long, arduous journey home to Sinuessa en Valle.”

Ah, how quickly the balance shifted.  Now Laurus stood in greater need of making purchase than a slaver would in offering tantalizing bargain.

I smiled.  “Speak your desire, sir,” I invited.  “I endeavor to assist.”

The Roman fuck called Laurus idly rattled off various skills his former slave had possessed -- a combination of talents I was certain he invented on the spot to further test my composure.  I shadowed him as he surveyed and prodded each man, regardless of any resemblance to the Greeks he had purportedly rejected at Metapontum’s market.

Agron and Duro stayed between me and the Cilicians, who had unhappily drifted back onto the deck of their ship.

Rabanus and Leviticus watched the inquisitive Roman as he meandered toward the third wagon.

Lydon emerged from the second cart to stand guard and I did not doubt that Mira was even now nocking an arrow to bowstring and sighting through slender gap between tarps.

With Laurus’ focused upon ruthlessly criticizing each man presented to him, his Metapontum associate proceed to plant his feet at rear of third cart.  The guard -- Pollux -- emerged and held tarp partially open with an air of impatience as he fairly sneered at the customer.

The Roman ignored his disdain with impressive fortitude, craned head, and squinted into the gloom where Gannicus and Spartacus sat squeezed tightly alongside with seven others.

I prayed: _**Gods, please, let this countryside fuck be ignorant of Capua gladiators’ face and form.**_

“You transport fighting men!” the Roman squealed gleefully, spinning around.  “How much for the lot?”

Laurus barked a mocking laugh.  “I have not yet committed coin to construction of your fucking arena and yet you would fill a ludus?  Which is also still mere figment!”

“With gladiators such as these, I would be inundated with offers of coin in such quantity that I would surely be forced to turn some away!”

“Ugh, very well, very well!  Let us lay eyes upon these _****paragons.”****_

Fuck!  How could I allow this when it would separate the men within cart from the weapons hidden beneath benches?  And -- fuck-fuck-fuck -- the very act of disembarking might allow view of contraband cargo!

I wracked my mind for some excuse to dissuade the Romans from a seemingly harmless viewing--

I might inform: _****“** **These are spoken for, but I would gladly procure others!”****_

To which the Romans would say, _****“Let us gaze upon their like, then.  I would take opportunity to form expectation of future offerings.”****_

No.

Or perhaps: _****“They are ill tempered!”****_

And Roman reply: _****“Can you not control your own wares?”****_

Goatfuck!

Another tack: _****“They are not presentable due to filth!”****_

Their rebuttal: _****“Is not such to be expected after arduous journey?”****_

Fucking fuck it all to shit and piss!

My mouth remained open.  No sound emerged.  Pollux, still holding tarp aside, looked to me for guidance.  I stared helplessly as Laurus moved to join his companion.

The excitable Roman’s guards yet stood with view of cart’s contents.  One man squinted into the shadows within.

I had no notion of what to do.

And then the guard’s scowl cleared and gods-fucked recognition dawned upon his face.  “Spar--!”

The shout was cut off by a geyser of blood.  As the guard’s body crumpled, the blade in Gannicus’ grasp was already seeking another victim and then Spartacus himself leaped out, armed with twin swords and clearly intending to use them.

Unfurling whip, I threw myself upon the back of Laurus’ nearest guard, choking him with the length of braided leather and stumbling him around.

_****Thwack!****  _\-- Agron’s cudgel smashing against the man’s wrist, sending sword clattering a far distance--

Duro charged Laurus’ second guard--

Laurus himself dashed for relative safety of nearby alley--

The male slave exchanged a look with the long-haired woman and then dived for his dominus’ feet--

_****Crack!****_  -- A mighty blow upon guard’s skull.  My prey lurched; I tightened grasp--

The whistle of a screaming arrow--

A _****thud!****_  of wood against flesh-and-bone and blood spattering my face--

I redoubled efforts, tightening grasp upon whip, bracing knee against guard’s slumped spine, and _****pulling--****_

A body striking ground.  Whose I did not know, but Duro and Agron yet stood--

Laurus snarled: “No, you don’t, you f--!”

The man in my grasp went limp -- from either loss of blood or lack of air, I knew not nor did I care.  I looked up.

The male slave was still rolling from where he’d been shoved or kicked aside.  Coming to a stop upon his belly and bracing himself up upon elbows, he called out: “Sibyl!”

Sibyl was her name then.  The name of the young, female slave who stared in innocent disbelief at the man -- her dominus, presumably -- impaled upon guard’s fallen sword now held in her meek grasp.

Laurus hunched forward over the weapon, his soft hands scrabbling uselessly at the sharpened steel as blood dribbled from between his lips.

“--fucking c--cunt!” he gasped.

Those were his final words.  Gannicus charged up to the man’s back, yanked him off of the blade and angled him away from Sibyl before cutting his throat with a vicious grunt.  Had he been in the arena, the Celt would have roared his victory.

Perhaps upon the next battlefield.

As Roman blood spurted weakly, splashing to the ground, I cast gaze over the harbor and took stock.  Six dead, all Roman.

Spartacus strode over and I obligingly lifted the head of the fallen guard at my feet for his throat to be cut, though I doubted that he’d be rousing regardless; Agron had caved in the side of his head.  Fuck, that German was strong.

“Put the bodies to cart,” the Thracian instructed.  Tilius and Vitus immediately rushed to see it done.  Lysandros was assisting Rabanus with dragging the body of Laurus’ second guard.  Duro and Agron yet eyed the Cilicians, who in turn eyed us.

“Do you suffer injury?” Gannicus asked of Sibyl.

Mute, she shook her head and then smiled, leaning into the clearly welcome embrace of her fellow former slave.  “Diotimos,” she exhaled and the sword in her grasp drooped until its bloody tip rested against the wharf.

Gannicus slowly reached out and collected it from her slender hands, leaving the two to embrace.

“We are finally free of that shit,” Diotimos murmured, patting her head with fondness.  “Did I not tell you this fucking venture would provide opportunity?”

She laughed, soft and musical, and tilted her head back to the sky.  Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.  “Thank the gods.”

“Gannicus,” Spartacus called.  “Gannicus!”

The Celt startled, jerking out of his glassy-eyed gawping.  “What?”

Spartacus gestured to the dead Roman.  “Let us clear the wharf.”

“Hm?  Oh.  I, uh, merely linger to ask if these two--”  He shrugged in the former slaves’ direction. “--would spit upon him in farewell.”

A lie.  Spartacus saw it as easily as I did; Gannicus had never appeared so utterly awestruck and fascinated.  At least not while sober.

“Fuck!” Diotimos snarled, pulling away from Sibyl.  “Yes!  I would fucking piss on--”

Sibyl caught his arm gently.  “And force these men to haul that away as well?  Does Dominus’ filth not cause distaste enough?”

Diotimos subsided.  Mouth quirked, he griped, “You temple maids ever seek to ruin a man’s enjoyment of life.”

She took no offense.  Smiling, she quietly chided, “Laurus is for the afterlife.  Enjoy that.”

“I fucking shall!”

“Have you a place to conceal yourselves?” Spartacus asked of them, interrupting their moment of celebration.  Given that we had rather obviously revealed ourselves here to fishermen, pirates, harbor workers, and bystanders, time was of the essence.

Diotimos curled an arm around Sibyl’s shoulders.  “Yes.  There is--the inn beyond--it is past the square and--fuck, the innkeeper will ask after Laurus--!”

“Follow us, then!” Gannicus beckoned.  Glancing to Spartacus, he explained, “They may rest at my friend’s home while we conduct business.”

“What of these wretched fucks?” Agron desired to know, nodding toward the tense Cilicians as our friends set eager foot toward sheltering path.

Spartacus squinted at the pirates in consideration.

Three whistles -- three arrows -- in quick succession.  The Cilicians collapsed upon ship’s deck, fletches poking up from the neck of one, the heart of another, and the forehead of the third.

“Go!” Mira commanded, lowering her bow and gesturing us -- the only remaining stragglers -- away from the open harbor.

“Mira!” Spartacus gritted out, moving with her.

“They are pirates who profit alongside slavers!” she hissed.  “And if that is a measure of their standards, they will think nothing of selling an account of today’s events to anyone who offers coin to hear it!”

I supposed that meant she assumed the fishermen to possess more honor.  Or less resourcefulness. Regardless, she seemed inclined to spare those witnesses.

“There is yet a captain and first mate,” I reminded all as we hurried to close the distance between us and Gannicus’ group ahead.

“Can two men command such a ship?” Duro puffed with exertion.

Spartacus answered, “They would force the assistance of others if required.”

“Fuck,” Duro bit out.

Agron sighed heavily.  “Let’s get on with it.  City will not surrender itself into our fucking hands.”

Duro grinned.  “It might!  You saw how the soldiers at city gate nearly pissed themselves upon hearing the name--”

“Shush!” I hissed.

He lagged behind Spartacus and Mira to issue challenge: “And if I do not?”

“I shall cut your hair in your sleep.”

“Fucking Syrian.”

“Idiot German.”

Agron snarled.  “Both of you: close mouth and _****move.”****_

I ducked my head, sliding a glance toward Duro who openly grinned at me in reply.  Agron huffed and smacked his little brother on the back of head.  When Duro squawked in affront and gestured to my unsuccessful efforts to flatten the amusement from my expression, Agron simply answered, “Nasir at least makes attempt.”

Duro glared at Agron, lifted his chin, and veered off toward Leviticus and Rabanus.

Left to guard the rear of our formation, I endeavored to focus.  I would not give Agron cause to feel disappointment or irritation with me while we stood charged with duty.

But then he nudged my hair aside and his fingertips danced upon nape.  I glanced up and caught the slight lift of his lips.

“Fucking German,” I whispered wryly.

Agron arched a brow.

“I believed your ire genuine.”

He grinned.  “Ridiculous Syrian.”

I supposed I was.  Though I hoped that accusation did not apply to my certainty regarding the taking of this city.

Agron and I alternated gazes toward the harbor, listening for sound of commotion and pursuit as we trailed through labyrinthine streets in Gannicus’ wake.  By the time we’d cautiously traversed the distance and rejoined the entire group, the Celt had already make contact with his friend.

“Sanus of Cilicia,” the rotund man introduced himself proudly, standing upon threshold facing an alley filled with rebels.

“And your business?” Duro dared to inquire with a tilt to his head that warned of either oncoming jest or fist.

Sanus chuckled and clapped Gannicus upon shoulder.  “Did he not tell you?  I stand the fucking magistrate of Metapontum!”

Duro chortled, disbelieving.  “How do you come by that boast?”

“I must be such an esteemed man.  Why else would my friend Gannicus appear on doorstep requesting that I host so great a number?”

A great number indeed: there stood forty in our group, including Sibyl and Diotimos.

“Sanus, if you provide us with the information we seek, I will see you installed in that very office,” the Celt vowed with a charming smile.

Agron leaned around to cast gaze upon alley at our backs.  I looked both up the lane and down.  The shutters and doors remained closed.  Passersby absent.  I felt the weight of silence bearing down upon shoulders as I would a hard stare.

Sanus laughed.  “Oh, you fucking Celts.  How dull life would be without your lot.  All right, then.  Let us see how many of your friends my humble abode will accommodate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Metapontum had a small harbor connected to the sea by canal, though I do not know if it was within the city walls. Let’s pretend it was. Sort of a “Sinuessa” layout, yeah?
> 
> Apparently, pirates (a.k.a. Cilicians) did a lot of business in the slave trade, transporting slaves from port to port. Suddenly, I have a new understanding for why everyone seemed to HATE Castus so much in the TV show.
> 
> Thank the gods (and the Sparty fans) for Spartacus Wiki. I stopped by to check a couple of facts on Sibyl and realized that I’d blanked on (1) she watches the stoning of the man in the marketplace, and (2) when Laurus stabs Diotimos in the neck and Diotimos drops his sword, SIBYL LUNGES FOR IT but is kicked back by Laurus. When I refreshed my memory on her scenes, a whole new realm of possibility opened up for her in this AU (because, as a good fandom friend pointed out to me, “Sibyl is not afraid to throw down when she has to”).
> 
> The slave that Laurus is looking to replace is meant to be the man that Spartacus watches being stoned to death in the Sinuessa marketplace. (I can’t remember if that was 3x01 or 3x02.)
> 
> Sanus is from Cilicia (in what is now modern day Turkey) but I’m not sure if he was ever a pirate. He’s introduced in 3x01 after the battle as a drinking buddy (and obvious fan) of Gannicus.
> 
> Oh! And this line:  
> “The measure of my cock would split you in two!”  
> That was borrowed from Baitiaus, Sr. In the scene where he buys Oenomaus from the Pit slavemonger.


	8. Judgment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: GORE (violence), DEATH (of more Romans)

Daylight.

The sun’s warmth tickled my skin until it itched beneath slaver’s garb.  Agron scowled up at the clear sky.  Duro’s shoulders rolled listlessly beneath unwelcome weight of blood-smeared vest.  We did not imagine the stares, though imagination attempted to convince us of their omniscience.  The clothing preferred by slavers was dark in color and of durable construction for many reasons: first and foremost, the lack of noticeable stain left from contact with blood.

Agron shoved at Duro’s shoulder and accused: “Pup.”

Duro’s chin lifted, unease falling from his expression and his entire form hardening with challenge.  Ah, now he looked the part of a slaver’s guard.

He defended his growing fears in a strangled whisper: “They know of what transpired at harbor side.”

As Duro required courage, I made effort to elicit it: “They have heard rumors.  They know nothing.”

“It is too late to question fucking plan,” Agron spoke, forcing reminder as his gaze tracked Sibyl’s path from crowded marketplace, past two Roman soldiers whose interest she piqued with a shy glance, timely stumble, and becoming blush.  When she ducked into nearby alley, they both followed.

“Is this common practice?” Duro snarled, and I felt his disgust as clearly as I tasted my own.

“For unaccompanied slaves,” I confirmed.  But Sibyl did not require our assistance.  Well, not within the alley.  The bustle of shoppers ensured that no one overheard arrows loosened from adjoining rooftops.  Even should the projectiles miss intended mark of bare neck and strike cloth, small puncture holes were easier to conceal than slashes from blades.  Ortius and Leviticus would then approach from behind and finish the deed.

Agron idly browsed through a basket of ripe pears.  I squinted at the neighboring vendor until the woman hesitantly asked what I sought.

“I seek an acquaintance,” I muttered much to her obvious relief, and Duro released the breath he’d been holding: “They emerge as planned.”

Well, at least one fucking thing had gone as anticipated since our arrival at Metapontum’s wharf.  The bodies of pirates had been left in full view upon ship’s deck and Roman corpses filled our empty wagon carts.  And it was yet midday!  Due to Laurus and his fucking friend, we could no longer wait for cover of darkness to see objectives met.  We all stood grateful for Sibyl’s offer of assistance.

Surprisingly, Gannicus had looked as equally ready to voice objection to it as Diotimos.  Sibyl had overruled them both.

Agron informed: “Captain and first mate enjoy themselves.”

I did not doubt that he laid eyes upon what he claimed, though I could not see them beyond each set of head and shoulders of the market crowd.  Agron’s initial sighting of them some moments earlier had prompted Sibyl to break away and draw soldiers toward waiting trap.

Duro turned around, showily scanning the square.  “I see recent puke stains upon far stage, but no fucking pirates.”

Glancing over shoulder, I glimpsed Ortius and Leviticus -- now costumed as Roman soldiers -- swaggering in the general direction of Metapontum’s front gate.  I nudged Agron’s hip: “Lead us over so we may see to our charge.”

“Pause a moment,” Duro objected.

Agron snorted.  “Did I not remind you to piss beforehand?”

“I’ll piss on your _****hand****_  should you grab me again, you sour fuck.”

I sighed.  “That was neither me nor Agron -- check belt for coin pouch.”

He blindly scrabbled for it.  “Fuck.”

“Not unless you retrieve your coin--”  I pointed toward the culprit.  “--from thief.”

“Bah.  My face has won me better cunt than that measly sum could purchase.”

“Such optimism,” Agron remarked.

“Piss off.”

“May we now?” my lover sought permission with sarcastic drawl.

“No, just--yes.  She emerges with Lysandros.”

She.  Sibyl.

“Of course she does.”  I could nearly _****hear****_  Agron roll his eyes.  “Gods forbid our newest recruit meet an ill fate.”

“Given the one she was required to keep company with until recently, I would say ill fate has been both met and bested,” I mumbled, thinking once again of Laurus.

Duro grunted and shoved Agron’s arm.  “For what purpose do we dawdle, idiot?  You would fondle the pomegranates next?”

“Cheeky cunt.”

“Oh-ho!  For that, I shall ensure your lover hears of these disturbing preoccupations with fruit and cunt and--”

“--knocking teeth from jaw…”

I recommended: “Perhaps you might focus your ire away from each other and upon Cilicians?”

“We but stretch tongue,” Duro laughingly assured me, “in aid of loosening insults.”

Truly, there stood no men on Roman soil better suited to task.  My German brothers easily bested my earlier attempts to rouse disturbance -- bouncing snide comments back and forth as children play with leather ball -- and drawing the first mate into a brawl.  I tripped the captain when he made to escape and suddenly we were caught up in a riot.

Soldiers poured in from every street, pushing past people frantic to escape trampling feet.

Rather than risk arrows hitting bystanders gripped by panic, it was the blades of the Brotherhood that swooped out of shadowed thresholds to skewer prey beneath cloak’s draping.

Thus we acquired eight more uniforms.

Diotimos waved us impatiently within the shaded walls of a spacious, abandoned property that his former dominus had toured two days before.  Perhaps this had been the intended site of Metapontum’s ludus.

Gannicus and Sanus were the last to haul their Roman catch through the door.  Sanus muttering darkly of donkeys and stitching.  It was debatable which stood the worse fate: to be sewn into a donkey or nailed to a barrel.

“We all stand grateful for your fucking confidence,” Diotimos sneered at Sanus.

Gannicus chuckled.  “Ah ha-ha!  You snarl not unlike our little Syrian.”

I pointed accusing finger.  “I will not seem so little when I fuck you in ass, Celt!”

Gesturing grandly in my direction, Gannicus concluded: “There, you see?”

“Indeed we shall,” I insisted, poking the smirking fuck in the center of his dusty chest, “see the matter settled once relieved of charge.”

Duro giggled and I turned in time to watch him elbow an exasperated Agron: “You have wretched taste in adornments, but you picked a winning Syrian.”

When Duro flicked the trailing end of leather necklace, Agron batted his hand away.  “You bleat with jealousy that Nasir did not gift you one.”

Diotimos startled visibly.

Before I could ask the man what troubled him, Spartacus remarked with mock innocence, “I too stand denied Nasir’s favor, Duro.”

Rabanus barked a laugh.  “Spartacus, you do not help matters.”

“Spartacus!” Diotimos barked.

I was on the man in an instant, clapping palm flat upon the Greek’s gaping maw.  “Hush!”

Duro’s brows arched.  “Who else would fucking slay Romans under midday sun in the center of fucking harbor?”

Diotimos’ trembling hand pushed at my grasp and I warily allowed him enough freedom to speak: “Spartacus and Nasir?”

Gannicus shook his head as additional chuckles tumbled from his tongue.  “You spoke of venture offering opportunity.  I’d say you’ve found it.”

For a moment, the Greek beamed with delight, but it quickly faded.  “Would that my friend Sinno had lasted another day.”

“What became of him the day before?” Spartacus inquired in the wake of our sudden sobriety.

Diotimos said, “Laurus heard him speak of support for your cause.  He was stoned in the square.”  Drawing a shuddering breath, the former slave admitted to me, “It was Sinno’s loss which saw Laurus to inquire of the contents of your carts.”

I lifted chin.

Spartacus observed, “Then it was Sinno who doomed Laurus so swiftly for the afterlife.”

The Greek nodded.  “A thing long hoped for.”

“With your aid, we’ll see to those likewise deserving of such a fate.”  When Spartacus offered his arm, Diotimos took it.

Sanus punched Gannicus in the shoulder.  “Fucking Celt!  You could have said the fucking Bringer of Rain and the Syrian Nasir were smearing wharf shit from the soles of their shoes onto my kitchen floor!”

“But then you would have offered your best wine to them instead of me,” Gannicus pouted.

“Idiot!  I never offer you my best wine!”

At Gannicus’ show of shock and affront, we all shared snorting giggles.

And then we set feet and hands to purpose.

Sanus saw us to the barracks of Metapontum’s city forces where off-duty men took rest.  Spartacus led the way indoors .

As Agron, Duro, and I stood among those lacking uniforms, we meandered drunkenly through the adjoining street, keeping watch with Diotimos.  Above us, male and female archers stood lookout, arrows drawn and ready.

Lysandros and Sibyl hailed us from nearby corner and we exchanged sloppy smiles.  Exuberant gestures.  Duro sang loudly in German, which set Agron bellowing with laughter.

Minutes passed, yet we heard only the occasional rattle of a shutter and clatter of table overturning from the nearby barracks.  One shout -- short and indistinct -- reached my ears before Spartacus emerged.  He stomped our way, scowling and gesturing for us to see ourselves from sight.

Diotimos threw an arm around Sibyl’s shoulder and tickled her in the side with opposite hand.  Her squealing giggles reverberated, providing Spartacus with opportunity to quietly report success: the Romans they had caught in mid-meal would not dine again in this life; those who had been found asleep would not wake.

“See yourselves garbed for occasion,” the Thracian bid, gesturing for Diotimos to accompany him.

“Sibyl?” the man prompted of the young woman.

She looked from me to my Germans and nodded with increasing confidence: “I go with them as planned.”

“We would not force distance between you,” Agron murmured.

“And how will you know the homes of notable Romans if I do not?”

Duro grinned.  “By the stink of perfume.”

I brayed a laugh.  Overloud and obnoxious.

Spartacus made a show of reaching for his sword.  When my Germans and I hastily quit his presence, Sibyl and Lysandros kept pace with us.

We next made for the city gates.  Ortius and Leviticus had already _****relieved****_  the Roman soldiers of charge.  When the Numidian nodded us toward a cluttered alley, my brothers and I squeezed in as Lysandros and Sibyl quietly argued over the wisdom of paying visit to Hera’s Temple so late in the day.

Taking advantage of the subtle distraction, I stood watch as Duro pulled one body away from the grubby corner in which it had been hastily folded.  Nose wrinkling in disgust, he assessed, “This one’s armament shall fit well enough.”

“A fortunate thing your hair is yet cropped,” Agron teased, earning himself a sour look.

When Duro forced an overbright smile, I braced myself.

“There’s a second here for you… should your puffed up chest allow buckles to clamp shut.”

Agron hesitated to strip off his slaver’s costume, and I was amused when, instead of whapping Duro for being cheeky, my lover implored to me: “Would you accompany him?”

Through a wide grin, I said nothing of the fact that I could sooner pass for Hera herself than a fucking Roman soldier and replied with needful reminder: “He stood your brother first.”

“I happily relinquish charge.”

“Oy!” Duro bleated, offended.

I slapped Agron’s hip.  “You shall survive one fucking afternoon as a Roman soldier.”

He bit down on a wide smile and stood still as I tugged the slaver’s vest and tunic up his torso and over head.

“This is what I have to look forward to, is it?” Duro complained.  “Senility in old age?  When I too shall forget how to dress myself?”

“Exert some patience and await your turn,” I chastised.

Though he turned away, I could hear his grumbling.  “The sight of you two fucking would almost be preferable.”

Once Agron was convincingly garbed in Roman armor, I rose up on my toes to press a kiss to his lips.  “Tomorrow, let us see about acquiring a goat for Duro.  He is lonely.”

“I pity the goat.”

Duro’s snarl was strangely similar to his older brother’s.

At the first Roman domus, Agron and Duro approached the front door with intent to inform the residents of unrest in the city and to take precautions.  Of course, once the entrance stood ajar and invitation was made to step within and answer a few inquiries, there was little to stop them from slaying the guards.  Lysandros and I counted several victims between us as overly perfumed Romans made attempt to escape via kitchen door.

Sibyl flinched at the sight of so much blood, but she lost neither color of cheek nor contents of stomach.

“You knew them,” I observed as the Roman and his wife bled out into the gutter.

Something hard flashed in her eyes.  A resolve or reminder.  “Yes,” she said, and I well understood that the acquaintance had not been pleasant for her.  I overheard the whispered words she exchanged with the slaves of the domus: “Move unseen to safe haven and pray to the gods for our success.”

As Sibyl said nothing which threatened my brothers, I pretended to be ignorant of the Greek tongue.

Five Roman residences we approached and rid of dominus, domina, and guards before exhausting Sibyl’s knowledge of Metapontum’s overbearing class.

Or so she claimed as she stared at the young woman who slid off of the end of my sword.  A boy younger than her -- surely he’d not seen enough years to have experienced his own toga virilis -- clawed through the tilled soil of the kitchen’s small garden before gurgling a long exhale.  He did not move again.  A brother and sister.

Sibyl looked down at her feet.  Lysandros and I shared disquieted frowns.  Duro poked his head out of the kitchen doorway but he did not smile.

“House is emptied of Romans.  Where do we go next?”

“I know of no others,” Sibyl whispered, bracing herself as if to receive a sword thrust through neck or belly herself.  “Aside from those Diotimos stands charged with.”

Duro nodded.  He believed her no more than I did -- surely Laurus’ wealth had guaranteed him invitation to dozens of homes in Metapontum -- but neither of us voiced accusation.  “Will you speak to the slaves within?”

She acquiesced with a nod and shakily crossed threshold.  Agron joined us in the yard, staring unhappily at the small conference taking place in the kitchen.  “They do not use the common tongue among us.”

Again listening to Sibyl’s whispers, I assured my brothers: “She causes no harm.”

Lysandros looked over the bodies of the silk-clothed family we had slain.  “Would that none had been necessary.”

I cleaned my sword upon a patch of wilted parsley and sheathed it.  Ready once more for use.

I had not enjoyed killing these unarmed Romans, but I did not know how else to silence the voices that would condemn my brothers.  I stood with Agron and Duro.  With Lysandros.  With Spartacus.

Casting gaze skyward, Duro observed: “Dusk approaches.”

And with it what appeared to be a thick, unbroken blanket of clouds.

“To the wall, then,” Agron agreed.

Sibyl reached out a hand to Diotimos when we rejoined Spartacus and Mira.

“There are yet a fair number of Romans within city walls,” Mira noted unhappily.

Spartacus invited her to step close at his side and murmured against her wind-tousled hair: “The tide has changed.  Let their slaves cast them out.”

“Hm,” I heard her agree.  “I eagerly await Naevia and her Gaul’s response to this.”

Indeed.  I too wondered if Naevia and Crixus would be so easily satisfied in standing aside as Metapontum’s Greeks dispensed their own sense of justice?

“Abandon signal,” Agron recommended, speaking of the series of torches we had intended to arrange upon the wall in invitation.  “Nasir, Duro, and I will depart the city to break words.”

I made no complaint and neither did Duro; we were fortunate that Agron did not volunteer only himself for the task of explaining shifted objectives to our bloodthirsty ranks.  From the bunched muscles along his jaw and tight moue, he was not pleased to share the risk with us, but we three had vowed to stand together.  Neither Duro nor I would allow him to forget.

Crixus was equally disinclined to forget the promised task of midnight slaughter.

“Well, lick my hole,” he jeered, chuckling at us in disbelief.

At his side, Naevia shifted, braced her feet and crossed arms over chest.

“Spartacus takes an entire city with only thirty-seven at his command…”  The Gaul paused and glanced over his shoulder toward the gathered warriors, each and every one armed with sharpened steel and blood upon thoughts.  “A man might be tempted to see what such a force as this--”  He nodded toward the rabble.  “--can do against the heart of Rome itself.”

“Rome will yet sit in its own shit and piss,” I replied, “come spring.”

“These men and women stand ready to fight.”

Which was precisely why we stood between them and a city filled with unarmed Greeks, fellow victims of Roman greed.

Agron delivered retort with thrust of chin: “If they stand battle-ready now, then they will stand even more so after a season spent in training.”

Crixus growled.  “This army--”

Duro cast a hapless hand toward the unformed ranks, “No, no, no!   You spoke of _****men and women.****_   Give them fucking opportunity to become an army.”

Naevia put a hand on the Gaul’s arm.  “The city is taken?” she checked, staring hard at me.

I nodded.

“With our numbers, the populace is easily subdued,” Duro insisted.

Crixus’ lip curled with disdain.  “And now you would count yourself among us, pup?”

Duro angled forward to meet the Gaul’s challenge in a show of courage I stood proud to witness even as I feared for the outcome.  “I count myself among those who follow Spartacus.  Do you?”

Agron watched the Gaul, bicep twitching in the light of torch held in grasp as he fought the urge to come between them.

Looking to Naevia, I hastened to divert attention to the true matter of the moment: “Do we not oppose Rome?  All of us?”

She loosened a volley of her own: “How do the citizens of Metapontum stand?”

“Permit them a day to show you the measure of their bravery.”  It was a brash gamble.  One worthy of Varro.  Although I had never been inclined toward recreational wager, I had faced threat of imminent death daily as a body slave.  I had survived years of service despite knowing that a single error might cost me not only my post but my life.  Once the people of Metapontum realized their landlords now took up residence in Tartarus, they too would find their courage.  Of this I held no doubt.

“I would gladly witness this,” Naevia replied, her shoulders releasing their taut lines.  Crixus frowned at her, brow quirked in question.  She shrugged.  “Spartacus asks for a day.”

“Spartacus asks that you spare the fucking city your wrath,” Agron corrected gruffly.

“It is I who asks for a day,” I daringly clarified.  My feet seemed to sink further into the earth, the weight of rashly shouldered burden settling upon me as the world rests upon Atlas.  “And when the Romans are cast out…”  I shrugged.  “We shall celebrate with many new friends.”

Duro’s chin tilted down.  He chuckled at Crixus through his waggling brows.  “Have you too many friends, Crixus?”

“Of far better quality than yours.”

Naevia rolled her eyes.  “And now they expose cocks for comparison.”

I sputtered at her prediction, very much enjoying the suspicious squint Agron aimed at Duro.

“Eh, I am agreeable,” my pup of a brother declared, “for I would win.”

Naevia leaned forward, arms akimbo, and teased, “Not if I stand as judge.”

Duro happily met her challenge.  “Opinion fully formed, eh?  Upon what occasion did you cast gaze toward my cock?”

As Crixus took a half step forward, Agron stretched an arm over Duro’s chest, shoving him back.

I sighed.  “Surrender arms at the gate and we provide shelter for the night.”  I could see neither moon nor stars.  The afternoon’s barren sky had flooded with clouds.  “It may rain.”

Rain it did.  In monotonous, windless torrent.  The soldiers’ barracks were quickly filled with disgruntled fighters.  Despite being disarmed, they were more than capable of brawling.  Duro quickly took up post of editor and organized matches, encouraging men and women to unwind coiled tension.  The cellar and pantry was quickly emptied.  Too quickly.  Provisions for a few dozen men would not satisfy the needs of hundreds, who quickly spilled into neighboring vacant houses and abandoned shops.

Sanus proved himself invaluable: he directed Tilius to a warehouse that stocked both pitch and oil and then he showed Pollux to the granary and smokehouse.  I glimpsed Litaviccus hauling a sack of grain into the adjoining kitchen and Vitus wrestling with a cauldron in his wake.  Lugo splashed through the inclement weather to haul water.  Though the gruel was not made by Euclid’s skilled hand, it filled our bellies.

Duro and Agron told of the unexpected encounter at the wharf.  When Laurus’ end was gleefully detailed, Diotimos’ slender chest swelled with pride at the enthusiastic applause.  Sibyl blushed, bowed head, stared at her curling hands.  Perhaps recalling the weight of sword in grasp.

We had neither cushions nor cloth to use in place of pallets, but all were dry and warm due to the lit lamps and torches.  I had itched to offer assistance in putting things in order, but with tensions yet high I could not abandon my post and instead kept Agron and Duro within sight at all times.

When I claimed a space upon dusty floor wide enough for the three of us, my lover left his brother to entertain the Germans who had not yet succumbed to slumber.  Taking a seat beside me and lending his warmth, he quietly predicted: “The little monsters are well; Santos will have all in hand.”

I did not doubt it, but I would wonder.  Until I could look upon them with my own eyes, I would wonder.  I nodded my gratitude and exhaled closer to his solid form.

I was surprised to spot Gannicus in our midst.  I would have thought both he and Sanus would have sought company among the Gauls.  Crixus and his countrymen had claimed the empty structure near the marketplace.  What they did with the bodies of the eight Roman soldiers taken during the riot, I did not know.  Perhaps sat ass upon them as one would utilize a couch?

Saxa sashayed over to the Celt and boldly seated herself upon his lap.  Nemetes, though clearly deeply invested in the debate he waged with Totus, looked unhappy but made no move to intrude.  Absent Sedullus, who was yet recovering and likely lying awkwardly in too-small cart upon the road to Metapontum, Nemetes seemed ill at ease.

Bright laughter echoed through the hall, drawing my gaze to Saxa.  Gannicus smiled dumbly at whatever witticism she’d shouted in German, but his attention was divided.  As Sanus attempted to make conversation with her, the Celt glanced toward the far wall where Sibyl lay curled upon a Roman soldier’s cloak.

Agron tracked my gaze and sighed.  “She withheld knowledge.”

“Of Roman families with young children,” I suggested.

Agron’s eyes gleamed in the light of torches, braziers, and lamps.  “You pass no judgment.”

He spoke truth.  “I tire of killing those who command no weapon.”

My lover shifted away, took my measure with a sweeping glance.  “We were not brought to Roman lands by choice.”  Agron’s gaze skipped toward his brother.  “We do what we must.”

Curling a hand around his nape, I tugged his brow to meet mine.  “We do what we must,” I agreed.

I dozed in Agron’s loose embrace until Duro collapsed with an exhausted huff beside me.  My lips curved as I felt the tension ease from Agron’s arms: his brother’s arrival signaled Agron’s capitulation to slumber.  My lover fell asleep just as Duro’s first snore tripped through the hall.

Oddly, I was now wide awake.  I was not the only one.  From the cloak pushed against the far wall, Sibyl shifted and rose to her feet.  She daintily picked her way past unconscious men and women sprawled upon the floor, moving with all the skill a house slave of an intolerant master must learn. When she slipped over the threshold and into the night, I followed.

I held no expectation of concealing my presence from her.  Having served such a demanding dominus, she would surely sense it.

Metapontum’s streets appeared empty.  Doors locked and windows shuttered.  I took a slow, thorough survey, but the shadows were too dark for me to locate my quarry.  I must wait for her to break words then.  I stood with arms at sides, hands open.

Moments passed.  A half dozen slow, even breaths.  I remained stubbornly stationed to view all vantage points.

No doubt realizing I would wait as long as necessary, she finally spoke: “Would you chaperone me to the latrine?”

My mouth quirked as I turned to find the object of my search speaking from the shadows.  “Should you require a chaperone or a guard, I would offer.”

“Gratitude, but I think it unnecessary.”

I admitted, “Metapontum’s streets are oddly quiet.”

“It is the curfew.”

“Curfew?”

“Yes,” Sibyl answered.  “To dissuade lawlessness.  But Diotimos disagrees.”

Considering the advantages a wealthy Roman might gain from an imposed curfew, I proposed: “A threat, then?  If the location of each man and woman is known, they can be summoned at will?”

My words surprised her.  With brows arched, she confessed, “He spoke of bribes.  Offered to soldiers by men seeking entertainment and drink.”

“Ah.”

On a whisper, Sibyl accused: “You know I was not forthright in my charge.”

There was little to be gained in denying it.  “I do.  As does Agron.”

I heard her heavy exhalation.  “The children…”

“We hold no desire to take their lives.”

“But you did.”

I too released a long breath.  “Children are not wholly helpless.  Their voices may sound alarm.  I must protect my brothers.”

“Does this thinking free you of sorrow?”  Her tone was quizzical.

“No.”  I spoke the truth that I had come to accept little by little with every step taken from Nola: “I am free of neither sorrow nor regret, but it is weight I choose to bear in place of one I could never endure.”

Her silhouette, only a shade darker than the shadow she claimed, shifted; her head tilted to the side in much the same way Agron’s did when he felt a twinge of confusion.  “You speak of peace?”

Peace.  I doubted it existed anywhere in either this world or the next.  Unattainable, surely.  I sought a more reasonable goal: “Balance.  You will find yours.”

She stepped into the wash of light flickering through barracks’ shutters and lifted her fisted hands.  Miming the act of holding a sword, Sibyl weighed her own heart against the woman who had grabbed freedom.

My own palms heated with memory: the unforgettable and path-altering feel of sword within grasp.  I asked, “You are called Sibyl by choice?”

She blinked, returning to the moment from wherever her thoughts had taken her.  “For what purpose do you ask?”

“I served for many years in Roman domus, answering to the name Tiberius.  But as I held sword in hand for the first time, I became Nasir.  My name is one of the few memories of life before Rome that linger.”

“Cybele,” she breathed, “was my name.”

Recalling Laurus’ complaints, I remarked, “Greek, indeed.”

“Yes.  I served the Temple of Hera near Sinuessa en Valle.  But Laurus… what he desires, he claims.  It pleased him to witness our fortunes decline.  He took me in payment of debt owed.  Named me ‘Sibyl’ out of mockery.”

Only a Roman would be cruel enough to enjoy the powerlessness of a former acolyte and mock her inability to foretell her own future.  Every time he called her name, he’d inflicted wound, a painful reminder.  Sibyl, spurned by the very goddess she had served.  “You need no longer endure the slight.”

“No,” she differed, “though he named me out of mockery, he stood ignorant of its truth.  When I dream, the gods whisper answers to my prayers.”

“And did you dream of that sword?”

Lowering her arms, she nodded.  “Not clearly or in so many words, but the feel of it…”

I understood her meaning.  I too had dreamed of certainty.  That confidence had led us here, on this day, to cross paths with this woman and enable her to free herself.

She told: “The gods guided my hands.”

“I do not doubt,” I replied.  “But I would encourage you to strengthen them so they are capable of your next task.  Whatever it may be.”

We lingered for a moment more in silence.  When she bid me goodnight and ventured down the street, I remained behind.  Perhaps she would look in on the men and women we had liberated from Roman master today.  Perhaps she would visit other homes and warn the slaves there to see beloved Roman family to safety.  She acted from heart as did I, though her heart was a home for her gods.

Did Agron and Duro believed as Sibyl did?  Were their hands guided by the gods?

Hm, no.  Another power committed my brothers to purpose.  Perhaps the one that guided me: I stood with Agron and Duro.  An intent so terrifyingly simple.  So easily we three could be swept away in currents of blind bloodlust.

But.  I was grounded in the purpose I had claimed: freedom of choice.

I prayed our intent would never again be divided as it had at Reginus’ villa.

The rain cleansed the streets, paths, and gutters of blood.  At dawn, carts rambled through the city and the bodies of the slain Romans were placed upon them.  The corpses laid out in the square as the vendors arrived.

No one unpacked their wares.  Confused gazes searched for soldiers, for Romans, for anyone who would exact retribution.

Spartacus took the stage, the platform where men and women had been sold at auction on market days for years, and spoke:

“I am Spartacus.”

He certainly held the attention of all now.

“Metapontum is a city of free men and women.”  The Thracian gestured to the bodies.  “Bring forth the Roman masters who have wronged you and tormented your family.  This day, they receive justice.”

Word spread, whispering breaths fanning long-banked flames.  A child bearing a slave collar was sent to the square to speak of his dominus’ guilt and beg for assistance in wresting the miserly fuck from his rooms.

Crixus and Naevia readily volunteered.

The Roman and his entire household was brought forth.  The gathering crowd shouted insults and spat upon his robes.

“Remove collar from neck,” Spartacus invited and Lydon held out a short blade to the slaves.  “If you would have the last sight before his eyes be of free men and women.”

Bolstered by the crowd, trembling hands accepted offered knife and sawed through tough leather ringing neighbor’s neck.

Then Crixus strode forward and beheaded the snarling Roman with a clean slice.  “Whose blood would you have next?” the Gaul roared and what followed was chaos.

Discarded slave collars curling upon the ground.

The scent of wine.

Cheers.

Roman blood flooding the square.

Spartacus stood aside as Crixus and Naevia gloried in the blood and gore.

“Would you carve his flesh?” Naevia asked of a flinching Numidian girl who now faced her dominus -- a whoremonger -- forced to his knees.  She took the knife, but it shook so badly in her grasp that a young man who stood in line with her as a fellow accuser, grabbed it and slashed the man so viciously across the belly that the Roman’s guts spilled out.  Another former whore grabbed the knife and peeled a portion of their former master’s scalp from skull.  Eyes now flashing with desire for blood, the Numidian woman reclaimed the knife and cut off his right ear.

The crowd clamored for more.

And more they received.

When Duro flinched at the unparalleled ferocity of the executions, I almost turned away in disgust.  Almost.  But my words had sparked this.  When I had urged Crixus and Naevia to permit the people of Metapontum to prove their allegiance, I had invited this.  I would watch.

By the gods.  The deaths my brothers and I had delivered the day before were a mercy in comparison.

The city had dissolved into drunken revelry by midday, but more Romans were brought forth.  Crixus made a show of each, inviting accusers to come forth and do as they pleased to their former dominus and domina.  As one body was put to cart and bound for the ignominy of burial in the city’s dung heap, another was shoved forward.

The next Roman of the day’s seemingly endless parade was squeezed through the crowd of spectators and thrust forward.  Perhaps it was the cowl upon the man’s head that caught my attention.  Regardless, it was the tear-streaked and terrified face of his accuser who held it.

“No!” I shouted, squeezing through the jostling bodies and feet slipping upon the well-trodden gore.  “Halt!  CRIXUS FUCKING HALT YOUR SWORD!”

_**Clang!** _

Heart in throat, I managed to stumble free of the throng.  Naevia frowned at Spartacus, whose sword had interrupted Crixus’ mighty swing.  The Thracian looked to me and I looked to the weeping accuser.

Phoebe’s husband.

Ducking down, I glimpsed familiar features beneath concealing hood: Pleuratos.

What was this?  For what purpose would these men stage deception of--oh.

Oh, fuck.

I pushed my face close to Pleuratos’ and spoke quickly, “Phoebe?  Is Phoebe under threat?”

“He promised to release her,” the young man sobbed, “were I to take his place.”

Fuck.  “Does he watch?”

“His body slave stands among the crowd.  As guarantee.”

“Then I will ensure he witnesses your death.  Act the part and we shall see your sister to safety.”

Our gazes met for a brief moment.  “Do what you must, but save her.”

I reared back and back-handed him.  As he tumbled into the puddles of blood, I looked to Agron and Duro.  Agron’s eyes were focused upon me.  Duro was already throwing a brotherly arm around the shoulders of Phoebe’s husband.

“Kick him in his fucking gut!” Duro goaded, nudging the shivering man back through the crowd.

I received a nod from Agron before I complied, foot smashing into the man’s belly as he flinched back, lessening the impact.  The fullness of the expensive robes also lent to the illusion of a merciless beating.  I drew it out, hoping to give Agron and Duro enough time to calm Phoebe’s husband and devise a method of aiding his pregnant wife.

“Do you regret insulting me now, Roman?” I screamed as he pawed at my tunic from where he knelt upon slick cobblestones.

My hand grasped his throat and he scrabbled at my arm.  The twisted scar upon my forearm where the brand of the Brotherhood had been sliced away, seared down into muscle, cut away by Medicus, cleansed and healed.

This exhibition -- the slow and torturous delivery of death -- was that iron brand descending again and again into the raw flesh of Metapontum itself.  My stomach lurched.  Bile churned in my throat.  The grimace that pinched my expression was genuine.

“Kill!” the crowd chanted.  “Kill!  Kill!  Kill!”

For the sake of appearances, I must.  But that rolling command sent me back to the arena.  The murmillo.  What was his name?  Why had I never asked his fucking name?

I forced a laugh.  “You hear the crowd?” I asked Pleuratos, who shook his head frantically.  “It is time for you to die.”

That was all the warning I could give him before I grabbed for his chin an showily snapped his neck.  My knee sent him into the ground, face turned toward the stage, fingers twitching.

On excuse of lifting my arms to receive the adulation of the drunken crowd, I scanned for--ah, yes!  There!  A collared man elbowing past the celebrants toward the alley.  Perhaps this was the body slave Pleuratos spoke of.

“Make way for the fucking cart!” Rhaskos bellowed and I turned, nodding for Spartacus to assist me with the body.  The body that yet breathed.

Spartacus met my gaze in shock.  I subtly shook my head.

This was not the first time Spartacus and I had shared thoughts in silence, though perhaps it was under the most dire circumstances.

“Crixus!” the Thracian called, rejoining the Gaul who was even now gesturing for another Roman to brought forward.

I hailed Rabanus to assist with cart and once we were clear of the crowd, I bid him pause.  “Pleuratos!” I hissed, shaking the man’s shoulder.  “Rise and cast off these fucking robes.”

Rabanus startled as the corpse did precisely that.  “My sister!” the man pleaded.

I steadied him with grasp upon arms.  “Duro and Agron -- the men who accompanied me to Hera’s temple -- Phoebe rode Agron’s horse and you broke words with Duro -- do you recall?”

“Yes, yes, what of them?  Phoebe--!”

“They tend to the matter alongside your brother in law.  Now calm yourself.  Yes.  Good.  Very good,” I praised, breathing deeply with him.  “And tell us where this wretched Roman is.”

The man gestured up the empty street.  I looked to Rabanus in question.

“Oh, no.  I fucking accompany you, little man.”

I snarled.  “Don’t fucking call me that, Sardinian!”

He laughed.

We sped through the streets, arriving outside the domus walls just as the body slave entered through the gate.  I could not be certain it was the same man I had seen departing the square, but there was no mistaking the figure who emerged minutes later: a heavily pregnant woman preceded a hooded man dressed in humble garments.  Her spine arched uncomfortably away from the dagger digging into back.

When Pleuratos gasped, I grabbed his arm.  Wrestled him away from wall’s edge.  I clamped a hand over his mouth as Rabanus leaned around and took stock of the situation.

“Where is that fucking horse and cart?” the Roman raged impotently.  A nearby clatter of hooves and wooden wheels answered the summons.

“Remain calm and allow us to save your sister,” I pleaded to Pleuratos.

He nodded.

I removed my hand and, crouching, joined Rabanus at wall’s edge.

From the opposite side of the domus, the body slave drove a familiar nag and cart.  The Roman forced Phoebe into it and joined her.

“You take the body slave.  I take the Roman,” Rabanus negotiated.

“I would pay coin to see you vault into that fucking cart,” I replied, nudging his knee.  “I take the Roman.”

Rabanus growled.  “Fucking Syrian.”

As the cart rolled closer, we drew back.  Rabanus waited with back to wall.  I spoke to Pleuratos: “Have you any reason to spare the body slave’s life?”

Fury-etched grooves lining his young face, the Greek shook his head.

So be it.

The horse plodded past.

The driver.

As Rabanus launched himself for the driver’s seat, I propelled myself toward the cart, crashing between the Roman and Phoebe, shoving the man over the edge and into the street.

He fell in an ignoble heap, head bouncing upon the curb.  The knife clattered an arm’s length away.

“Phoebe?” I checked.  “Are you hale?”

She nodded, wide-eyed and grasping the side of the cart so tightly her knuckles were bloodless.  The corpse of the body slave tumbled from driver’s seat and Rabanus collected the reins, drawing the horse to a halt.

“Pleuratos?” Phoebe gasped and her brother was a blur of motion as he raced around the corner toward her.  I leaped from the cart, but before I could collect the dagger, it was scooped up by an enraged husband and expectant father.

I made no effort to come between him and his employer.  Instead, I moved toward Agron and Duro.

Agron’s arm slid over my shoulders.  I wrapped mine around his waist and then punched Duro with the opposite hand.  “Late!” I accused.  “Were you preoccupied with an itch upon ass?”

Duro rolled his eyes.  “I see you let Rabanus have the driver.”

“Pity,” Agron agreed, tucking his smile into my hair.

“I have fucking seniority!” the Sardinian called.  No one argued with him.

Neither did anyone argue with Spartacus upon our return when, during a private conference with Crixus and Naevia in attendance, he suggested, “Perhaps the Romans that stand accused might be held in custody until identity is confirmed.”

There stood very little in this world that could make the Undefeated Gaul cringe, but the thought that he’d nearly been used for a Roman’s purpose was enough to provoke it.

Naevia pressed clenched fist to her lips, shocked and wounded and vulnerable in a way I had not seen since before she’d had Marius under her blade.

“Confirmation of identity,” Agron spoke into the stunned silence.  Showing a rare moment of mercy, he redirected attention away from placement of blame and toward the matter at hand.  “How will this be done?”

“The priestess,” Duro suggested with confidence.  “Would she not know most of the men and women of this city?  The Greeks, at least?”

Spartacus nodded.  “Let us make inquiries.”  He then gestured us toward the door and back to the square.  There was yet a crowd, but their fervor seemed to have passed peak.  Now they listed against walls and each other, more concerned with their cups than the spilling of blood.  “Keep watch,” Spartacus requested.  “I will locate Sanus and ask where the city’s slave pens are located.”

A fitting place to keep Romans undeserving of kindness.

As he departed to see to task, I glanced back over shoulder.  Through the doorway that stood ajar, I glimpsed Naevia in Crixus’ arms.  They swayed slowly back and forth.  Taking solace in the wake of terrible fear: they had both nearly succumbed to the will of Rome.

It truly did not require either collar or brand to be made a slave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read that Sibyl’s name was originally spelled “Cybele,” which makes more sense to me since “Cybele” is a Greek woman’s name and “sibyl” literally means “prophetess.” Hence the part where Nasir asks her about it and she explains.
> 
> Regarding the last line of this chapter, Nasir isn’t talking about Crixus and Naevia becoming slaves to Rome but to their own darker impulses.

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are. You made it this far with me, so I hope that means there was something kudo-worthy about this story. (^_^) Also, it would be fantastic and amazing and wonderful to hear from you.


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